


October Prompt Bingo 2018

by pipermca



Series: Prompts and Things [5]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, M/M, October Prompt Challenge, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 14:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipermca/pseuds/pipermca
Summary: A collection of (mostly) unrelated shorts, ficlits and drabbles for the2018 Halloween Bingo Prompts.Individual chapter notes will contain each story's rating, continuity, and relevant warnings or notes. Characters in tags are main POV characters for the various fics/chapters.





	1. Ghost Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Ghost story for the bingo prompt?  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Continuity:** Transformers: Prime  
>  **Notes:** Canon-divergent

It might have been better if it was a proper haunting, with a proper spirit or ghost. Not just this... **harassment** by a previous coworker.

Not that Starscream believed in ghosts, of course. There was no scientific evidence that ghosts existed. Once a spark ceased to function, there was nothing left to hang around, bothering those who still lived. 

But this...

Starscream glared around the lab again. He’d started feeling someone watching him months ago, staring at him while he worked. When he looked up, there was no one there, of course. He was alone, and had been alone ever since escaping from the Predacons. 

But he couldn’t shake the feeling of someone’s optics on him. And it wasn’t long before he worked out whose optics they were.

At first Starscream had thought that, perhaps, the feeling was caused by his anxiety of being caught again. He scanned the laboratory for surveillance devices, checked and rechecked his security system, and made sure that his escape paths were safe. Everything came back green, with no indication of where that **feeling** was coming from.

Not until **he** sent Starscream the signal.

It was a brief blip in one of his surveillance monitors, no more than a few bytes of data, but that was all **he** would need to get his message across. The bytes were compressed and encoded and tagged, and when Starscream opened the message he read the bare glyphs that made it up.

 _Assistance required._

Ugh. Of course it would be him.

“It’s hard to work with you always looking over my shoulder,” Starscream hissed at the empty air. 

There was no reply. There never was, of course.

Starscream worked through a few more lines of code before spinning around in his seat and standing up. “Let me tell you a story,” he said, stalking his way over to the stack of energon cubes on the far table. He opened one and leaned on the table, looking around the vacant lab. “Once upon a time, there were two Decepticons.”

The empty lab was silent.

“Both were high-ranking officers who reported directly to Lord Megatron. They were both **exceedingly** loyal to his Lordship, always working for the benefit of the Decepticon cause.” He drank half of the cube and put it back on the table. Locking his hands behind his back, he slowly walked back to his work station. “One of them, Air Commander Starscream, was a tactical genius and an accomplished scientist,” he said, placing his hand flat against his chest armor. Then he waved his hand and added, “The other was a fairly good spy.” Starscream loaded the words with as much sincerity as he could. “I mean, intel is important for any military operation. It’s a **very** important job.”

The lab remained silent.

Reaching the work station, Starscream sat down again and pulled up the lines of code for the mini-cons. “After Lord Megatron **deserted** the Decepticon cause, the Air Commander made a daring escape from the Autobots and those savage Predacon beasts, and concealed himself in a secret laboratory to plan the resurgence of the Decepticons without that coward Megatron.” He smiled at his monitor. “But as for the spy... The spy was **tricked** by a few juvenile humans, and was trapped in another dimension.” Starscream threw his head back in laugher. “Can you believe it? Megatron’s top spy and surveillance mech, out-witted by a few miniature organic creatures?”

Suddenly, on the other side of the lab, one of the machines blared to life, letting out a howling **bleep** and a rattle of machinery.

Starscream shrieked, curling himself into a ball as he stared at the machine. After its outburst, the machine went dark and silent again, almost immediately. 

He could still feel the optics on him.

Clearing his intake, Starscream slowly straightened out his limbs. “I mean... Of course, they **were** unusual little humans,” he said. “So it’s perfectly understandable that they got the better of you, Soundwave.”

He felt the optics on him again. Starscream glared around the lab, looking for anything he could focus his glare on.

He saw nothing. 

Finally he threw his hands in the air. “All right. Fine! You’ve made your point.” Starscream closed the mini-con program and opened the retrieval program that he’d started. He poked at the keyboard unenthusiastically. “But once I get you out of the Shadow Zone, you’d better help me with **my** project,” he grumbled.

Soundwave, of course, said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It begins! XD
> 
> I am still taking prompts on my Tumblr at **pipermca**. I'll be taking prompts up to about October 12 or so. Help me get a bingo. :)


	2. Harvest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Harvest for the Halloween bingo prompt.  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Descriptions of death

The medics knew about Fray.

Most other mechs regarded the stories as myth, created over vorn to help lighten the weight of the war. Constantly losing friends created a hope that there was something more after this existence. Seeing death all around you created a need for something to look forward to. 

After your spark went out, the Afterspark was supposed to be a place that would let you reunite with those you’ve lost. And the mythical Fray was supposed to be the one who took your spark there.

It was all nonsense, of course. Non-corporeal mechs who guided the dead to the Afterspark? Complete bunk. Only the superstitious and extremely pious believed that pap.

Except the medics **knew**.

Even the best medics lost patients, and they were often the last to be with a mech as its spark sputtered and went dark. So they saw, and they knew. They discussed it in only the most oblique terms with other medics. It wasn’t something that they taught in medical school, or even in field training once the war started. But after being present for the deaths of thousands of mechs, most war medics had caught a glimpse of her: a flickering shadow there, a compassionate EM field encircling a still-greying frame, a whisper of a dead mech’s designation when there was no one else around.

Ratchet knew. 

For millennia he dismissed what he had witnessed, attempting to chalk it up to being low on recharge, or disturbances in the local radiation fields, or just his sensors playing tricks on him.

But after so long, after so many battles and so many deaths, Ratchet knew what he saw was real. So the first time she acknowledged him, he finally accepted it. 

Fray was real. She took the dead from this realm, and helped them into the next.

After the most recent battle, Ratchet did his final check on the mechs who were still living, making sure the monitors were hooked up and no one was getting ready to code. Then he turned his attention to those in the next room... Those he couldn’t save. He had to finish cataloguing their designations and causes of death, for the record. Each death went into a report, which fed into the tacticians’ databanks, which helped them plan the next battle or the next defense. In theory, each death served to provide data that might save others. Realistically, Ratchet knew the next battle would probably go the same as the last.

 **Designation:** Boltheel  
**Position:** Infantry  
**Cause of death:** pulse weapon injury to spark crystal

 **Designation:** Redjaw  
**Position:** Infantry  
**Cause of death:** crushing injury to spark crystal

 **Designation:** Hitch  
**Position:** Infantry  
**Cause of death:** shrapnel injury to processor

Ratchet caught motion in his peripheral vision, a flicker in his optical sensors. He drew a deep vent and nodded at the shadows before turning back to his work. “You’re late,” he said bluntly.

“I was busy,” she said, her voice like smoke on the wind. “This was a significant battle.”

Huffing, Ratchet shrugged. He already knew that by how full the morgue was. “I just hope that they lost more than we did this time.”

“You know I can’t tell you that.” The shadow flickered to the first slab and bent over the still form.

“I know,” Ratchet said, and turned back to his own work.

 **Designation:** Turbine  
**Position:** Air support  
**Cause of death:** loss of spark containment upon crash

 **Designation:** Groundline  
**Position:** Infantry  
**Cause of death:** shrapnel injury to fuel pump

After he’d finally accepted what she was, after the first few times he saw her come and go, Ratchet didn’t watch her work. It bothered him, knowing that there was **something** she could draw from the frame or the spark that was still a being, still a someone. It made Ratchet feel as if there was something more he could have done, if only he’d tried harder. So he stopped watching.

But he remembered what it looked like. Even with his back turned, he could picture her leaning over the mech’s frame, her own body seeming to flicker in and out of existence as she gently moved her hands over the spark. Then, she drew out a tendril of something lighter than the shadows that made her up, something like dust in a beam of light, rising out of the greyed corpse. She balled the light in her hand and drew it into herself, where it vanished into her darkness.

He’d asked her about it once, what she was pulling out of them. “It’s their essence. It’s the concentrated stuff that made them who they were: their experiences and their personalities. It’s everything they were and everything they could have been.”

 **Designation:** Howler  
**Position:** Infantry  
**Cause of death:** loss of spark containment due to dismemberment

 **Designation:** Lightbraid  
**Position** : Artillery  
**Cause of death:** shrapnel injury to main fuel line

The shadow flickered from slab to slab, seeming to spend only a moment at each one. Ratchet finally paused in his work when the ethereal mech appeared to stand on the other side of the table he was working on. Her form oscillated between solid and indistinct. “All done?” Ratchet asked, lifting his optics and trying to focus on her. When the form nodded, he said, “Take care of them, please.”

Her face appeared clearly for a moment, showing her smile. “I always do,” Fray said. “It’s my purpose.”

Then the light in the room shifted, and the shadow disappeared.

Cycling his optics, Ratchet turned back to his reports, documenting the designations of those he couldn’t save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the name Fray from two sources. First, Freyja is a Norse goddess of (among other things) war and death. She rules over Fólkvangr, a field where half of those who die go. (The other half are taken to Valhalla by the Valkyries for Odin.) Secondly, the word "fray" as a noun means a battle or a fight. 
> 
> ...just in case anyone was wondering. :)


	3. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Haunted, Bluestreak for your spooky prompts  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** PTSD, flashbacks

Bluestreak fell into the couch with a hum of delight. For a change, he got one of the good seats. “What’s on tonight?” he asked. “I know that Wednesday nights are sort of a black hole for good television. Not a real black hole, of course, just that there’s usually nothing good on. But it looks like you found something!”

“It’s a documentary on PBS,” Spike replied from his perch on Bumblebee’s knee. “I hope that’s ok... My history tutor suggested that I watch this tonight when it was on.”

Cliffjumper groaned. “A documentary? Isn’t that just boring slag like stories about dead people or stuff that happened a billion years ago?”

Laughing, Spike said, “Well, Pompeii happened almost two thousand years ago, so of course everyone in it’s dead. But the documentary got pretty good ratings the last time it was on, and my tutor promised that I’d probably enjoy it.” He gestured at the screen where the intro to a learning show was playing. “It’s starting!” 

Bluestreak grabbed a couple of the rust sticks from the table and then settled back into the couch. “It sounds kind of interesting,” he said. “Was Pompeii a country or something?”

“No, it was an ancient city that was buried by a volcano,” said Spike. 

“A volcano like... this one?” Cliffjumper asked, his voice rising slightly.

“Perceptor said this volcano’s safe,” said Bumblebee, patting Cliffjumper on the shoulder. 

Spike held a finger up to his lips and made a shushing noise. “Guys, come on! I have to listen to this!”

Silence fell over the corner of the rec room as the documentary started. Bluestreak munched quietly on a rust stick and watched. He’d have to tell Prowl about this; the tactician was always encouraging Bluestreak and the other Autobots to learn more about the world they found themselves on. 

The show started calmly enough. Shots of ancient ruins, old temples, restored mosaics. Some of them were quite intricate, and Bluestreak smiled as he remembered some of the mosaics he used to create back in –

Bluestreak deleted that line of thought as he felt his anxiety jump. He shook out his door wings and took another bite of the rust stick.

Then the scenes shifted. They showed people made out of plaster. Bluestreak focused on the audio of the show, trying to figure out why all of the statues in the city were lying down. 

“Plaster was poured into the voids that the archeologists found, creating casts of the people and animals that had died in the eruption. In some cases, the victim’s death throes were perfectly frozen in time as the extreme heat of the pyroclastic flow caused instant rigor mortis.”

The camera panned past a plaster cast of a human lying on its back, its mouth open in a grimace.

Bluestreak frowned at the screen and took another nibble of his rust stick. Some of the poses that the human shapes were in activated memories that he had carefully shunted into locked folders. He quickly ran a cleanup thread to lock those memory files up again.

“Wow, that’s crazy!” exclaimed Cliffjumper. “Hey look, isn’t that a dog?” 

“Yeah,” said Spike. “All the people and animals got buried in ash, and they were discovered over a thousand years later. Pretty cool, huh?”

The documentary finally switched away from the images of the plaster human shapes, and Bluestreak let out a small vent of relief. On the screen, people dressed in strange clothing moved around a market. Vendors displayed their wares of various merchandise and food items. 

“I thought cameras were a pretty recent invention on Earth,” Bumblebee said.

Spike nodded. “They are. These are just actors pretending to be the people who used to live in Pompeii.” He grinned up at Bumblebee. “You can see how fashion has changed a lot!”

The scene changed to show a mountain in the distance. It rumbled and began throwing ash into the air, creating a dark cloud that slowly moved towards the town.

All of the memory files that Bluestreak had just finished archiving queued themselves up again.

The people screamed. The actors screamed, Bluestreak reminded himself. But they were making it look so real. They screamed, and they ran. The camera showed terrified faces looking behind them. People stumbled, fell, and were left behind. The black cloud turned the daytime sky to night, and rocks began to fall from above. A pillar fell, blocking the people from their escape route.

The screaming.

“Bluestreak?” Bumblebee’s voice sounded concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I...” Unable to move his optics from the screen, Bluestreak realized his engine was revving. The sound of buildings collapsing filled his audials as the volcanic eruption on the screen went on and on. His cables tightened up as if getting ready to move, but Bluestreak found that his motors weren’t responding to his commands to stand up. “I can’t...”

The screaming. 

Flinching at an explosion nearby, Bluestreak tried once more to stand up, but a block of rubble had landed on his pede. Above him, a formation of Seekers roared past. “I can’t move!” he yelled.

There was another explosion, and he heard the screech of metal as the neighbouring building toppled over. He looked up just as the wall collapsed on top of him, sending him into darkness and choking dust and smoke.

The smell of burnt metal and spilt energon assailed his receptors. One of his door wings wasn’t responding; it had likely been ripped off when he was buried. Pain burned in his sensors where his wing had been.

He heard the screams of the mechs that had been standing near him. They were all buried under the same debris as he was.

Buried. Buried alive. Alone in the dark, in the heat, in the flame, in the smoke, in the pain.

“Help me!” Bluestreak screamed, flailing his arms out, trying to free himself.

Even as he struggled to draw in a vent of clean air, he felt hands on him. They were gentle but firm, smoothing down his arms and holding his hands. Then he heard a voice: clear, commanding, and kind. “Bluestreak. It’s all right. You’re safe.”

Cycling his optics, Bluestreak looked up at Prowl. The Praxian’s door wings were spread to shield the rest of the room from Bluestreak, or perhaps to hide Bluestreak from the others in the room. But they also served to bring Bluestreak’s focus to the SIC’s face. He held Bluestreak’s gaze as soon as he had it. “You’re safe,” Prowl repeated firmly.

His engine still whining as it ran hot, ready to speed him away from the danger, Bluestreak drew in another vent of air. It was clean, and cool. His door wings didn’t hurt, except for a slight strain in the hinge as they trembled. He pulled his pedes in tight against the couch, and they moved freely.

Recovery protocols that had been installed by his therapist a millennia ago initiated as soon as he cycled his air vents again. The protocols gave him a location and a diagnostic. He was in the rec room, on the Ark. He was on Earth. He was undamaged.

Slowly, Bluestreak nodded. “Y-yes, sir,” he stammered.

Prowl’s expression softened slightly, from concern to relief. “Just Prowl is fine for right now. I’m off duty,” he said quietly.

“Is Bluestreak ok? What happened?” Bluestreak saw Spike peering under Prowl’s door wing, a worried frown on his face. “Why was he screaming? What did he say?”

Bumblebee gently pulled Spike back a bit. “Bluestreak just... had enough television for today, I think.” 

“Bluestreak will be fine, Spike,” Prowl said. “But I think he could do with spending a little time someplace a bit quieter.” His voice lifted at the end of his statement, turning it into a question for Bluestreak.

Bluestreak’s helm jerked in a nod. “Yeah,” he said, and accepted Prowl’s hand to pull him up from the couch. He cast a wan smile at Spike. “Enjoy the rest of your show. It looked... really interesting,” he said. Then he walked out of the rec room, Prowl at his side. He hoped it didn’t look like he was running away.

As soon as they got into the hallway, Bluestreak stopped and leaned against the wall. “Thanks, Prowl,” he muttered, letting his door wings fall. He still felt vaguely disoriented, as if another explosion could bury him again at any second. “How did you know...?“

“Bumblebee commed me as soon as he realized what was happening,” Prowl said. Tipping his helm to the side, he asked, “What were you watching?”

“A documentary Spike wanted to watch for school, about Praxu- No, wait...” Bluestreak tried to dig the name of the city from his memory. “About a city called Pompeii.” He looked up at Prowl. “The images were... Well, I mean, it was just a reenactment, but it...” He shuddered when he recalled the sound of the screams he had heard.

Prowl’s optics flickered slightly as he accessed the data net. “I see,” he said after a moment. He looped an arm around Bluestreak’s shoulders and tugged him into a slow walk towards his quarters. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to review some more Earth history so that you can better identify triggers before you encounter them.”

Bluestreak nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like a great idea. And until then, I’ll just stick to Knight Rider.”


	4. Curse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Curse, for the halloween prompt?  
>  **Rating:** M  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Canon-typical violence

For as much as Tagan Heights was a center of industrial might and scientific excellence, the wilderness just outside its boundaries was as wild as it came. And the crystal forests surrounding the city had grown even more dangerous in the 1500 years that the Decepticons held the area. 

Many of the most horrendous Decepticon experiments had started off in the labs in Tagan Heights. The first experiments to modify mechs into combiner teams had started there, as had the development of the spark-draining vamparc ribbon and the very first forays into shadowplay. Not all of the experiments were successful, and some of the victims of these trials escaped into the hilly terrain around the city. 

After the Autobots seized control of the city from the Decepticons, the wilderness just outside Tagan Heights was still untamed. Patrols constantly reported seeing malformed mechs wandering the forests, and heard mysterious noises at night. Leadership tried to keep the rumours knocked down, but patrols came back all the time with new, even more creepy stories. Within weeks of establishing a base on the outskirts of the city, the solders had grown certain that cursed mechs roamed the forests, waiting to take down unaware Autobots.

But the Autobots had fought hard to wrest control of the area from the Decepticons, and it was imperative that it be safeguarded... No matter what roamed the forests. 

Hound and Bluestreak carefully picked their way through the dense crystal growth several klicks from the base. Bluestreak’s sensor wings waved methodically through the air behind him, searching for any hint of the strange spark signature the Autobots’ sensors had picked up earlier. Meanwhile, Hound kept sampling the air, tasting for any sign of a mech who might be lurking in the shadows of the forest. Their goal for this patrol was to find the source of the signal and determine whether it was of Decepticon origin.

They’d been on their patrol loop for almost a whole megacycle and hadn’t seen, heard, smelled or sensed a single thing worth reporting. As far as they were both concerned, that was great news. They had both witnessed disturbing things in the forest since being assigned to this outpost, and they had no desire to see any more.

::I dunno, Hound. There’s nothing out here. Maybe the sensors were malfunctioning.:: Bluestreak’s fatigue seeped through the comm line. The two of them had been at high alert ever since leaving their forward camp, and the strain of constant alertness and concentration was starting to show. ::I’m thinking we can just call this area thoroughly patrolled and start heading back.::

Hound was just about to send a glyph of agreement when he scented the mech. He held up his hand in the “stop” signal, and Bluestreak froze beside him. ::Hang on. I smell something.::

Out of the corner of his optics, Hound could see Bluestreak’s optics scanning the thick forest around them. The sun had set hours ago, and the light of the full moon created a disorienting kaleidoscope of shadows and reflections through the crystals. ::Is it... Is it a mechanimal?:: Bluestreak’s comm signal was tagged with a hopeful glyph. ::Bumblebee said they saw a herd of cyber-cervids when they were out.::

::I don’t know. Hang on, let me check it out.:: Hound took a few steps away from Bluestreak, hoping to clear his sensors of the Praxian’s rich scent, but he made sure not go out of sight of his patrol partner. He could smell the earthy rocks on the forest floor, and the fresh scent of the crystals around him. Faintly, as the air currents swirled around, he caught a whiff of the city: exhaust and oil and aging metal.

Lifting his helm, Hound flared his nostrils and sniffed again, and – there. It was the tang of coolant and the richness of fuel. A mech, someone other than him and Bluestreak, was nearby. But...

He frowned and tasted the wind again. The scent was wrong, somehow. It had an odd musk to it, almost like a hellhound. Maybe it was a mech who hadn’t seen a wash rack in a while? 

The only warning he had was the scrape of metal on rock and a shout from Bluestreak. One moment Hound was standing with his nasal ridge in the air, and the next he was on his back under a writhing mass of claws and pointed plating and gnashing dentae.

Hound grunted as he felt the beast’s fanged dentae sink into his shoulder armor, piercing the plating as if it was soft copper.

“Get off!” he yelled. His fist connected with the creature’s helm, but all it earned him was a snarl and the jaws tightening around his shoulder. Hound heard the metal plating shriek as the creature worried at the armor, and its claws scrabbled to keep him pinned. A foreign, feral field warped around him, speaking of nothing but rage and the drive to hunt. 

The sharp retort of a rifle sounded again and again as Hound tried to shove the beast off of him. Hound’s engine roared as he gave another push, but his arms and legs were almost immobilized by the beast’s weight.

Then a new kind of pain wracked Hound’s frame as his firewalls surged, seeking to protect his processor from invading code. The crushing of his shoulder was agony, but he’d survived worse as the war dragged on. The fire in his processor, though, was unlike anything he’d experienced before. A brief flicker of Mirage trying to explain what it felt like to be hacked ghosted through his memory before he was consumed with pain, both in his helm and his shoulder.

Hound heard a scream as his firewalls crumbled and the foreign code streamed into his core. Distantly, he realized the scream had come from his own vocalizer. 

A moment later, the pain eased slightly. Hound opened his optics to see Bluestreak standing over him, raising his rifle and bringing the stock down on the beast’s helm once, twice, a third time. The fourth time Bluestreak’s makeshift club landed a blow, the strange field that surrounded Hound shifted from anger to remorse and guilt. In a fluid motion, the creature let go of his shoulder and leapt away, bolting into the cover of the surrounding forest.

“Hound!” Bluestreak knelt next to the green mech and helped him sit up. 

Hound groaned in pain as his processor spun. He glanced at his shoulder where the beast had crushed the armor, and he saw that the joint was spitting sparks. Then he squeezed his optics shut again as the act of turning his helm caused pain to shoot through it.

“I don’t know what in the Pit that thing was, but I emptied an entire clip into it and it didn’t even flinch!” Bluestreak exclaimed. His optics widened as he took stock of Hound’s injuries. “Are you all right? Oh, your shoulder is fragged up bad. I’ll bet it hurts. Hang on, I have some pain patches in my kit and – Hound?” Bluestreak’s voice trailed off as Hound’s entire frame convulsed. 

The world swam in and out of focus, and the planet spun wildly out of control under him. Warnings flashed by on Hound’s HUD, far too fast for him to process, and he felt as though fire had been poured into his circuitry. He shivered as his cooling fans started up and then seized as his internal temperature swung wildly from overheating to chilled.

::Bluestreak to base, code 5! Repeat, code 5. We need immediate evac at my coordinates.:: Hound closed his optics again and hissed as Bluestreak’s comm signal sent a fresh stab of pain through his processor. Every system seemed to be fritzing. _What the frag is wrong with me?_ Hound thought woozily.

“Let’s get this on you.” Bluestreak slapped a pain patch onto Hound’s shoulder. He could feel a cool numbness spread across the punctured plating, but it didn’t even begin to touch the pain in his processor. Hound’s helm lolled on his neck; it felt too heavy to keep upright. Bluestreak followed Hound’s movements, trying to look into his optics. “Let me know if the patch doesn’t help. Your colour looks really off. Can you tell me what’s wrong? I’ve got help on the way. They should be here soon; they just pinged with an acknowledgement. You just need to hang on until...”

Another spasm wracked Hound’s frame, sending jolts of fire and ice through his lines. Hound leaned over, trying to steady himself with a hand on the ground. Then, with another convulsion, he purged his tanks onto his lap before collapsing onto his side.

The last thing Hound saw before stasis lock disabled his optics was the full orb of Luna 1 rising above them through the crystal forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is continued in [Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501/chapters/37992092).


	5. Tradition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** *gaaasp* For the Halloween Bingo, "tradition"? Blue and Hound please?  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1/IDW  
>  **Warnings:** PTSD  
>  **AU:** [Black on White on Black](https://archiveofourown.org/series/776487) (takes place chronologically after [Pulling Strings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529417/chapters/33570267))

Bluestreak and Hound worked hard. Running a guiding business really did feel like a dream job, but it was also hard work. To begin with, they spent a large amount of time apart: as soon as Hound returned from a sightseeing tour, Bluestreak would take off with a group of hunters. Even when they had a larger group that they took out together, they were still “on the clock” and needed to think about their customers before themselves.

Fortunately, the guiding season didn’t last an entire vorn. After the calm season, but before the rust storms started, there was a lull in both the weather and their schedules. Most mechs were wary about wandering too far from a city right before the storm season started, and that left Bluestreak and Hound with a fairly empty schedule.

After a few vorn, they’d picked up on the pattern, and started to depend on it. They, too, preferred to stay around their property during the storm season, fixing things up and relaxing. But before the storms started, they liked to go camping: just the two of them, with no one to worry about except themselves. 

It had become a bit of a tradition. They arranged for a neighbour to look after their zap ponies, and then headed out to an area on the reformatted Cybertron that they hadn’t yet visited. Their excursions usually lasted about a deca-cycle, giving them plenty of time to fully explore an area. The trips were not entirely for leisure; they used them to scout places for possible future tours that they could offer to customers. But the trips were done on their own schedule, and they answered to no one but each other.

Hound loved these trips.

Their latest vacation took them to the Tesk Crater. Hound had been there twice during the war, but now after hundreds of vorn the crater was once again overgrown with crystals. On a clear day you could see all the way across the depression, but when they arrived the winds had whipped the dust up and the edges of the crater faded away on either side.

It was an easy drive to the base of the crater where they set up their camp. They spent the rest of the day and much of the next exploring, making notes of interesting sights they could show customers. Sheltered from the wind, the crystals at the bottom of the deep basin grew large and thick, and strange rock and metal formations jutted from the floor of the crater. Bluestreak was especially taken with the way that the sunlight lit the edges of the crater at sunrise and sunset, turning them ablaze with reflected light. Hound, in turn, was taken with the way Bluestreak’s optics shone when he smiled up at the glittering cliffs.

After Hound prepared their fuel on the second night, they settled into their familiar routines as they sat by the generator. Bluestreak leaned back against their trailer’s wheel, while Hound sat in one of their portable chairs. They both had their fuel, and datapads with stuff to read, and blankets, and the stars spattered out over the sky above them.

It was one of Hound’s favourite times when they were out camping together, especially when Hound could feel Bluestreak’s contentment in his field. When he had something engrossing to read, Bluestreak’s inner demons quieted and finally allowed him to relax. Hound treasured the relaxed smile on his partner’s lips as the flickering light from the generator played over his beautiful features. It reminded him of how lucky he was to have Bluestreak at his side for so long. He watched Bluestreak read for a moment longer before looking down at his own datapad.

Hound was so engrossed in his own reading (an adventure story set in Cybertron’s outback during the Golden Age) that he missed the change in the sound of Bluestreak’s engine. But when he felt a crawling unease creep over him, Hound looked up.

A frown twisted Bluestreak’s face as he stared at his datapad, and his door wings twitched at irregular intervals. But the agitation in his field was the true giveaway that Bluestreak’s contentment had evaporated. Hound had been with Bluestreak long enough to recognise the signs that Bluestreak was waging a battle inside his processor against the horrific memories that he lived with constantly. 

Hound knew through vorn of experience watching Bluestreak work through his memory leaks that the best way to help him was to draw his attention away from whatever was bothering him. “Are you all right, Blue?” he asked quietly, expecting the jolt of surprise in the Praxian’s door wings as he looked up at Hound.

Bluestreak’s expression swiftly changed from unease to surprise to one of chagrin. “Oh... Yeah. I’m all right.” He smiled, but Hound noted that the light from his smile didn’t quite reach his optics. “Sorry. I guess I was doing it again, huh?”

Hound set his data pad down and stood up, crossing to kneel in front of Bluestreak. He rested his hands on Bluestreak’s knees and looked at him evenly, projecting as much calm and acceptance in his field as he could. “Nothing to be sorry about, remember?” he said. When Bluestreak nodded and Hound felt him relax slightly, he added, “I’m just glad to have caught you before it got too bad.” He glanced down at the datapad in Bluestreak’s hand. “What are you reading?”

With a last glance at the datapad, Bluestreak turned it off and shoved it at Hound. “Here. I’m regretting bringing it now.” When Hound took the datapad, Bluestreak said, “It was just a short article about New Praxus. I’m not sure why it bothered me so much... Maybe it was the picture they used.” Bluestreak rubbed his face, suddenly looking very tired. “Can you... Maybe if you just delete the article, I can read the rest of the stuff on there without seeing it.”

Hound flicked on the datapad. The article that Bluestreak had been reading was on the screen, alongside a photo of three smiling mechs standing in front of a sign that read “New Praxus Crystal Gardens.” He quickly skimmed the article: it talked about how the rebuilding of New Praxus was nearly complete, and highlighted some of the attractions that were being recreated. A few taps of his digits later, and the article was deleted.

“There. It’s gone,” Hound said before placing the pad on the ground beside him. “Did you want to talk about it?” he asked gently, brushing his digits against Bluestreak’s.

Bluestreak drew in a stuttering vent before gripping Hound’s hand in his. “I **want** to go visit Prowl and Jazz,” he said after making a visible effort to steady his vocalizer. Hound felt his own spark twist in sympathy at seeing the evidence of Bluestreak’s mental struggle. “ **I want** to see the new city. I want to... I want to move on, you know?” He closed his optics and leaned his helm back against the trailer. His field shifted from anxiety to frustration. “I thought I was getting better, but knowing that there’s a new version of Praxus out there makes me feel like it... like it just happened. Over three million vorn and I’m still wading through the same slag.”

Hound shifted closer until he straddled one of Bluestreak’s legs. Grabbing his sparkmate’s hands, Hound gave them a squeeze. “There’s no deadline for visiting Prowl and Jazz. There’s no hurry.” Bluestreak’s optics cracked open, and Hound smiled at the cobalt light gleaming through his optical shutters. “We can do it when you feel up to it, and we don’t have to go a moment before then.” 

Opening his optics fully, Bluestreak stared at Hound for a moment. His field felt turbulent, but Hound knew that was usual when he was working through the noise in his processor. “We promised them we’d go see them,” Bluesteak said quietly.

“And they said they’d be happy to have us **any time** ,” Hound reminded Bluestreak. “Prowl even said that he’d understand if it took hundreds of vorn before you felt ready.” When Bluestreak gave him a half nod, Hound shook his hands gently. “I know you haven’t been to see Beacon in a while.”

At the mention of his therapist, Bluestreak smiled. “No. I haven’t. I was getting better, remember?” He gave another nod, more sure this time, and glanced down at the datapad. “But going to see him might be smart.” Then he lunged forward to plant a quick kiss on Hound’s lips. “You’re always full of good ideas.”

Hound returned the kiss and then sat back a bit. “If you want a different distraction... I brought Primes and Drones.” When Bluestreak’s optics brightened, Hound added, “If you want to go visit Prowl and Jazz, it couldn’t hurt to brush up on Prowl’s favourite game.”

Bluestreak laughed. “That sounds like another good idea,” he said. As Hound rose to get the game board, Bluestreak shifted so he was sitting closer to the glowing generator. “Maybe you’ll even beat me this time.”


	6. Fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt** : Fog, for the October bingo prompt?  
>  **Rating** : T  
>  **Continuity** : G1  
>  **Warnings** : None

Skywarp hummed a little tune to himself as he cruised just off the tip of Starscream’s right wing. The energon run had been completely successful: the Autobots never showed up, no one got hurt, and Megatron had actually said “Well done, Decepticons!” 

Even better, the strategy for the raid had been developed by Starscream. The fact that the raid went off without a single hitch meant that Starscream would be completely impossible to live with for the next while, but at least he’d be in a good mood. That good mood was already evident in the Air Commander’s field. He was projecting pride and contentment, and best of all, he was **happy**.

Skywarp couldn’t remember the last time Starscream had been this happy. It had definitely been back on Cybertron. Skywarp let his own field extend out to brush Starscream’s, and was rewarded with a soft nudge of affection.

Skywarp waggled his wings joyfully. He cast his sensors back at the rest of the squadron to see that everyone else was flying in perfect formation. Even the Coneheads were in perfect alignment for a change. No one was willing to risk Starscream’s upbeat mood with some minor transgression, and besides – there was reason to celebrate. Megatron had promised everyone extra rations tonight, and that meant a party when they got back to the Nemesis.

Everything was perfect.

“I don’t like the look of this cloud bank.” Thundercracker’s comm cut into Skywarp’s happiness like an energon sword. “Maybe we should divert around it.”

“I can’t believe that you’re afraid of a little cloud, **Thunder** cracker.” Starscream’s sharp retort cast even more of a shadow over Skywarp’s mood. “It’ll take us hours to detour around this. I am not going to be late for a celebration of my triumph!”

Skywarp sent worried glyph to Thundercracker over a private comm line. ::What are you **doing**?!::

Thundercracker ignored Skywarp and continued on, concern evident in his tone. “I know clouds, Starscream. And this one’s giving me a bad feeling.”

“I am not going kilometers out of my way because of some vague feeling you have,” Starscream replied. “The shortest path to base is through this cloud, and that’s the way we’re going!”

Skywarp focused his scanners forward towards the cloud. It looked like... a cloud. Sure, it looked like the edge of one of those huge weather fronts that occurred on Earth. It stretched from horizon to horizon in front of them, but other than that there didn’t seem to be anything strange about it. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything dangerous about it, either: no lightning, and no dangerous downdrafts that Skywarp could sense. It just looked very dense. But it wasn’t as if they used their optical scanners much when flying anyway; their other sensors cut through the water vapour on this planet just fine.

There was a long pause before Thundercracker sent back a single glyph of acknowledgement to Starscream. But he pulled into formation a bit tighter until he was just meters off of Starscream’s left wing.

And then they plunged into the cloud bank.

It felt like any other cloud on Earth: cool, disgustingly damp, and impossible to see more than a few meters. Starscream’s cockpit was hazy, and Thundercracker was almost lost in the grey mist. All he could make out were Thundercracker’s wing lights. Skywarp switched to his non-visual sensors, and his trinemates reappeared clearly.

“This seems ok to me, TC,” Skywarp said. “It’s a bit thicker than most clouds but I’m sure we can manage.”

“Yes, Thundercracker. If you’re still afraid, just stay close to us,” Starscream said, his tone dripping with mockery. “I’m sure Skywarp and I can protect you from a little water vapour.”

Thundercracker said nothing, but they were flying in such close formation that Skywarp could feel the blue Seeker’s field twist in anxiety. Skywarp sent Thundercracker a nudge with his field, but he didn’t receive a response.

Skywarp’s good mood had all but evaporated into the thick cloud.

They flew on for several minutes, but the cloud bank showed no signs of ending. If anything, it seemed to grow even more dense. It became colder, too, and he could feel ice forming on the leading edges of his wings. He waggled his wings irritably, hating the way the icy coating made him feel slow and clumsy. 

Fortunately, Sunstorm complained before Skywarp dared. ::We’re getting awfully iced up back here, Commander. Permission to descend below the cloud bank?::

Starscream’s reply was quick and fierce. ::Permission denied! That will take too much time and too much extra energon. Maintain your current altitude.:: 

Sunstorm sent back a grudging acknowledgement, but Skywarp could hear vague grumbles over the comm lines from the other trines as well. And if he could hear them, so could Starscream.

 _So much for Starscream’s good mood,_ Skywarp thought glumly.

The temperature continued to drop. If Skywarp’s plating hadn’t been clamped down to reduce his wind resistance, it would have clattered as he shivered. He carefully slid even closer to Starscream, trying to catch what little heat was streaming off of the Air Commander’s frame. On Starscream’s other side, Skywarp could sense Thundercracker doing the same; his wings seemed to be iced up even more than Skywarp’s.

“Star, I’m **freezing** ,” Skywarp said quietly enough so he wouldn’t be overheard. He tried to keep the whine out of his voice, but he could still sense Starscream’s field growing more sour. “And you’ve got a pretty bad buildup on your wings, too. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to-“

Skywarp was interrupted by an exclamation over the squadron’s comm channel. ::Thrust! Where’d you go? Report!::

::What’s going on back there?:: Starscream snapped.

Ramjet’s comm was tagged with glyphs of alarm. Skywarp couldn’t tell if Ramjet meant to add them, or if he added them unconsciously. ::Sir! Thrust vanished!::

::Mechs don’t just vanish. Scan the area.:: Starscream’s order was delivered with a clipped, business-like tone, and Skywarp could feel his trineleader’s field ripple with irritation.

::Hotlink just disappeared!:: Bitstream’s comm broke into the channel, disregarding the basic etiquette rule that only trineleaders could use the open channel while the squadron was on a mission. ::He was right **there** – my sensors were aimed right at him! – and then he wasn’t!:: His comm practically crackled with his alarm.

“Starscream, we should descend out of this cloud,” said Thundercracker. The blue Seeker’s field was steady, but still held a taste of worry. “If their wings iced up and they stalled, they might be hurt.”

After a moment’s pause, Starscream gave a shake of his wings. ::All Seekers, descend to 3.5 klicks. Then we’ll circle around to look for those two idiots.:: 

Skywarp sent a grateful ping to Thundercracker as he followed Starscream’s descent. Thundercracker’s quiet unflappability was a perfect antidote to their trinemate’s volatility. It was always a relief to Skywarp when Thundercracker could gently nudge Starscream into a sensible decision.

As they dropped down through the cloud, Skywarp caught fleeting glimpses of the rest of the squadron. Their wing lights were faint spots of light in the mist. Everyone was still in formation, aside from the two missing Seekers, but they kept fading in and out of view as the cloud’s density shifted. Skywarp could just barely make out Sunstorm and Bitstream bringing up the rear, their tight formation marred by their missing member. Ramjet and Sunstorm were sending constant pings, calling out for their missing trine members. 

When they reached the designated altitude, though, the cloud bank had not dissipated. If anything, it had grown even thicker. Starscream’s annoyance at the whole situation was palpable in his next transmission. ::Formation 835, on my mark. If we don’t get a signal from them after we finish the run, we’ll descend and try again.::

Skywarp cringed at the frustration in Starscream’s field. 

::Hey! Where did the Rainmakers go?:: Ramjet’s comm came on the heels of Starscream’s order. ::They’re all gone!::

Starscream’s engine growled, low and dangerous. ::Of all the... Acid Storm, report!::

The comm line was silent.

Starscream’s field shifted from pure frustration to carry a hint of fear. ::Ramjet, report what you saw. Did they disregard my orders and take off on a different heading?::

The comm line remained silent.

::Ramjet? Sunstorm? Report!::

Silence.

Skywap cast his sensors behind him, but sensed nothing except icy fog. A shiver ran through his frame that had nothing to do with the temperature of his plating. 

::Anyone? Answer me!:: Starscream’s comm took on the frantic tone it always did when a battle was going poorly.

There was no reply.

Skywarp’s battle protocols sent extra power to his warp drive, warming it up for a potential jump. But jump to where? Frantically, Skywarp starting pinging location requests to the humans’ satellites that the Deceptions had hacked, but he couldn’t get a signal on any of them. Next he tried the main Decepticon frequency, but he only received static in response. 

“Did they **all** disregard my orders?” Starscream snarled. “Did either of you see which way they went?” Starscream’s wings flicked out, sending icy shards cascading off their leading edges. “Did they... Did they fall?” His question was simultaneously derisive and worried. 

“I don’t think they fell,” said Thundercracker. The blue Seeker drifted closer to Skywarp, his nosecone just above Starscream’s tail: technically he was out of formation now, but it put all three of them as close together as possible. Skywarp noticed that Starscream didn’t seem to mind. “They were there, and then... they weren’t. I think we should contact Soundwave and request backup.”

Skywarp extended his field to wrap around his trinemates like a hug, as if that could hold them close to him. “Star, I can’t pinpoint our location. I can’t even tell whether we’re still over the ocean. And...” Skywarp knew he’d catch slag later for going around Starscream, but he hoped he could get Thundercracker on his side of the argument. “I already tried raising Soundwave. I can’t get a signal.”

Starscream was silent for another moment before replying, and when he did it sounded like talons on sheet metal. “Fine. We’ll drop out of the cloud deck so we can get a clear transmission.” The sound of Starscream’s engines braking sounded like music to Skywarp. “But keep trying to raise the other Seekers. They have to be out here **somewhere**.”

They descended in silence, and Skywarp kept close tabs on their altitude. Three klicks. Two klicks. One and a half klicks. “TC,” Skywarp said as he sent another hail out on the Decepticon’s emergency band, “can you tell if we’re getting close to the base of the cloud?”

There was a pause, and Skywarp turned his sensors towards Thundercracker.

The blue seeker was gone.

“Where’s TC?!” Skywarp shrieked. His warp drive spun up in his panic and he had to issue a manual override to shut it down. Where would he even go? “He was right there! Where did he go?! Star, where is he?”

“Thundercracker!” Starscream called out loud and over the comms. “Thundercracker!”

Skywarp’s spark felt as though an icy hand was wrapping itself around it, and he flitted from one side of Starscream to the other, unable to hold his position in his terror. “Oh slag oh Primus oh slag it’s taking us all, we’re all gonna go, what if I’m next, Star, where did they go?” he babbled.

“Stop that!” Starscream transformed and braked hard, holding a hand out to catch Skywarp’s wing. Skywarp reflexively transformed and hovered next to Starscream, swinging around to face him. “Take a vent cycle. We can figure this out. We’ll find Thundercracker and the others.”

Skywarp stared at Starscream wildly, trying to calm his ventilations. Starscream held Skywarp’s upper arms in a firm grasp, and his voice was firm and calm. His field, too, was a balm: Skywarp could feel the undercurrent of Starscream’s dread, but it was overlaid with determination. Skywarp leaned into the sensation gratefully. Starscream could be volatile, selfish, and ambitious, but he could also think quickly in an emergency and act on his decisions. And he cared about his Seekers, even if he acted like he didn’t.

There was a reason he’d been a successful Air Commander for so long.

When the spin of Skywarp’s spark had slowed, Starscream gave Skywarp a little pat before letting him go. “All right. It’s possible this cloud goes all the way to sea level, and it’s obviously interfering with our sensors and comms. So, can you teleport above the cloud? Say, sixteen klicks above sea level? That should be high enough.”

Skywarp began shaking his helm even before Starscream finished. “I’m not leaving you here, Star. I’m not leaving you alone.”

Starscream scoffed and rolled his optics. “Of course you won’t. You’ll be taking me with you.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure, I can do that,” Skywarp said. He wrapped his arms around Starscream, ignoring the chill he got from touching Starscream’s iced-over plating. “With two of us I’ll have to do it in two jumps, though,” he said after performing the calculations. 

Starscream nodded impatiently, anxiety leaking into his field again. “Fine, fine, just get us out of here!” 

His warp drive spun up and engaged, and with a vop they were eight klicks above where they’d been before. It didn’t look any different, though; it was still wet and cold and grey. “One more,” Skywarp said, and powered up his drive again.

The instant his warp drive activated, though, he felt a flare of alarm in Starscream’s field, and felt Starscream slip from his grasp. He was sure he had a good grip, but the icy plating slid beneath his fingers, as if Starscream was pulling away from him. 

...or he was being pulled away.

“Star!”

Then Skywarp was above the cloud, which stretched out in every direction below him. Stars were scattered above his helm, but he paid them no heed. 

His arms were empty. He was alone.

“Starscream!” he yelled, staring down at the cloud beneath his thrusters.

There was no answer.

::Skywarp to Nemesis, mayday mayday mayday! Our entire squadron has disappeared! There was some fog, and ice, and... They’re all gone! I’m the only one left! Please respond!::

He heard nothing but the crackle of an open comm channel.

Skywarp heard a roaring in his audials and realized his engines were redlined as his processor sought to get him away from the cloud. But his spark kept him there, seeking his trinemates. “Starscream! Thundercracker!” Skywarp transformed and accelerated in a random direction, frantically scanning the cloud below him. “Bitstream! Ion Storm? Dirge! Anyone!”

He heard nothing, and saw nothing except the grey, featureless mass of cloud below his wings.

::Soundwave! Come in! Megatron? **Please...** :: Panic gripped his processor. Was there anything else could he do? 

Desperation gripped him. He opened a frequency that he knew but had never used. ::Autobots, come in. This is Skywarp... I need help! Blaster? Come in! ...Prime?:: His messages had morphed into sobs, but he didn’t care. ::Please. **Anyone!** Please respond!::

All he heard was silence, and the sound of the wind beneath his wings.


	7. Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Hound and Monster for the TF bingo ask.  
>  **Rating:** M  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Description of cartoon-typical violence
> 
> This is a continuation from [Curse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501/chapters/37844726).

Hound ran his finger under the stasis collar as Ironhide locked it around his neck cords. “It needs to be tighter,” Hound said. When Ironhide hesitated, Hound looked up at him and added, “You saw the surveillance footage. I’ll be able to slip right out of this.” He lifted his chin so that Ironhide could see the lock clearly. “Make it tighter.”

Ironhide’s engine rumbled low and deep, but he bent to readjust the collar without a word.

“I don’t understand what the collar’s for. He’s already in a cell. We’ve had Onslaught in here, for Pit’s sake. Surely it can hold him without having to resort to a stasis collar.” Bluestreak stood just outside the cell, his arms crossed tightly under his bumper. His stance and the quiver in his sensor wings spoke volumes of the tension he held in his frame. “What if it hurts him when he –“ Bluestreak waved his hand for a moment, searching for the words. “What if it hurts him when **it** happens,” he finally said, casting a glance at Ratchet, who stood on the other side of the cell door.

“I’m the one who asked for the collar, Blue,” Hound said. He tested the collar again and nodded at Ironhide. “You didn’t see what I did to the ventilation shaft in my quarters. I’m not convinced that this cell is going to hold me.” He took a deep vent and looked around the cell. “And if I do manage to get out of here, I want to make sure that they can stop me from hurting anyone.”

Bluestreak’s face twisted as his expression flashed from shock to anger to fear to sorrow, and his helm shook slowly. “It should have been me,” he muttered, his optics fixed on Hound as Ironhide locked the door and activated the shock bars. “I was supposed to have your back.”

Hound walked up to Bluestreak and looked at him through the cell’s bars. “Slag happens, Blue. I don’t blame you for this. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either.” 

He held Bluestreak’s gaze until the gunner dropped his optics and slumped against the wall beside him.

When Hound woke in medbay after being attacked by the creature, the medics admitted they didn’t know what the foreign code had done. Ratchet, Wheeljack and Perceptor working together had been unable to draw out the threads of the code in enough coherency to figure out its purpose. Even enlisting Jazz’s assistance for his expertise in viruses hadn’t given them any breakthroughs. 

What they did know, though, was that the code had insinuated itself into every system that Hound had. It coiled through his core programming, his personality matrix, and his base fuel and ventilation systems. It even changed the firmware in his transformation cog in a manner that had completely mystified Ratchet. Whatever it was, there was no system that was untouched, no process that wasn’t affected. And there didn’t seem to be any way to extract it without affecting Hound’s existing code.

But after three deca-cycles in medbay of testing and diagnostics with no progress, they finally released him for light duty. What else could they do? There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him, and the base was ridiculously short-handed as it was.

Four nights later, Hound went into recharge after his shift. He’d felt keyed up and touchy all day, so retreating to his quarters for rest had seemed like a good idea. When he came back online in the morning, he was kilometers from base. His energy and fuel levels were critically low, and he was covered in dust, dents and scratches.

They hauled him back into medbay. More tests. More diagnostics. More analysis. The result was the same: the code that had been injected into his processor was lying dormant, and it didn’t seem to be doing anything odd. Ratchet wondered if his walkabout had just been due to stress; Hound wouldn’t have been the first mech to have woken up outside their quarters after walking around during recharge. Maybe it had just been a coincidence. 

So Hound was released once more, but was confined to base. At Red Alert’s request a surveillance camera was placed directly outside of Hound’s quarters to see if it caught anything odd, and he was outfitted with a remote tracker.

The next orbital cycle, Hound woke one morning disoriented and exhausted, but his fuel tanks were full. The acrid taste of reprocessed energon coated his glossa and intake. Once again he was kilometers from base, and covered in a myriad of minor injuries. But on the ground beside him was a deactivated mech. His chest had been ripped open and his main fuel line had been ripped out. Hound was covered in the dead mech’s energon.

Even though the mech’s chest was emblazoned with a Decepticon brand, Hound’s tanks still lurched at the evidence of what he’d done.

The camera outside Hound’s quarters had caught nothing, but it was easy to figure out why: the ventilation duct in Hound’s quarters had been ripped open as if by a chainsaw. But the base’s exterior cameras had caught a clear image of a creature leaping from one of the external vents. The creature had a long snout and pointed audials. Its plating was jagged and pointed, and it crept forward on pedes armed with sharp talons. After jumping from the vent, the creature sniffed the air before taking off into the forest on all fours. 

Red Alert had frozen the clearest frame of the footage and provided it to the command staff. It showed the creature’s green plating, lit by the light of the full moon. Blue optics shone out from its face. On its shoulder, partially distorted by the rifts in its plating, was the red shape of the Autobrand. Data from Hound’s tracker showed him standing exactly where the creature was at the time the footage was taken.

As the data points fell together, the science team managed to work out the activation condition for the virus. The code was designed to sit dormant until the tidal forces of the full Luna 1 activated them.

The next full moon was tonight. 

“I’m just glad I haven’t hurt any... any Autobots,” Hound said. He looked around at the mechs gathered outside his cell. “And I’d like to keep it that way. So the collar stays.”

Bluestreak heaved a long vent before nodding. “I understand,” he said, looking back up at Hound. “And if there’s anything I can do...”

Hound squared his shoulders and hoped he looked more confident than he felt. “Just... Don’t let me get out of here. Don’t let me hurt anyone.” 

His sensor wings quivering on his back, Bluestreak nodded again. Then he picked up the stun rifle from where it leaned against the wall, and turned away. Hound could still hear the Praxian’s engine whining quietly, though.

Ratchet tapped the datapad in his hand. “We’re going to figure this out, Hound,” he said. Hound knew that he was saying this as much for his benefit as for Bluestreak’s. “We’ve got monitors running on your code to see what happens and when. That will give us a good start on knowing... Well, knowing where to start on creating a fix.”

With a nod, Hound turned away from the bars of the cell and sat down on the bench against the wall. He scrubbed his face before looking back out at the mechs gathered to watch him. He pushed down the irritation at them all staring at him, knowing that they were here for a reason. Slag, he was the one who had suggested doing this in the first place. 

He remembered his irritability the nights he’d changed before. It was just another indication of what was about to happen.

Closing his optics, Hound leaned his helm against the wall of the cell. He could smell the three mechs just outside the bars, and Jazz hanging back in the shadows. Outside the block, Sunstreaker and Tracks stood guard, and he could hear the slight jingle of the straps of their pulse rifles. He heard the faint whir of the surveillance camera refocusing as Red Alert made sure every moment of action would be captured. 

But most oddly, he could feel a pull inside of him. It pulled on his spark and on his transformation cog, gently but insistently. Even with his optics closed, he could see what was pulling on him: the large, silvery orb of Luna 1 rising free of the horizon.

A slight shiver ran through his frame as he waited for the change to come.


	8. Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Prompt- ‘mask’, Sideswipe  
>  **Rating:** M  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** NSFW elements, pet play, gently implied twincest, implied exhibitionism, author wandering outside comfort zone

Sunstreaker smoothed his hand down Sideswipe’s plating: from the top of his helm, down his neck and side, until his hand came to rest on Sideswipe’s waist. Sideswipe, with his helm in Sunstreaker’s lap, sighed contentedly at the gentle touches. Sunstreaker could feel the calm that had settled across Sideswipe’s spark like an insulating blanket.

Smiling, Sunstreaker rested his hand on the back of Sideswipe’s helm. The tips of his fingers played with the buckles that held the cyberhound mask over Sideswipe’s face. “You’ve had a busy day, haven’t you?” Sunstreaker said. When Sideswipe tipped his helm to look up at Sunstreaker through the holes in the mask, Sunstreaker’s smile broadened. “You got in some play time, and you did really well with your training.” He scratched Sideswipe behind the audial horns, and was rewarded with a happy rumble from Sideswipe’s engine. “You’re getting really good at catching my hand signals.”

At the praise, Sideswipe flipped over onto his back, baring his stomach. He squirmed and whined until Sunstreaker moved his hand down to his abdomen. 

Sunstreaker’s fingers moved softly over Sideswipe’s abdominal armor. “Stop wiggling so much, boy,” he said. Sideswipe stilled immediately, and his blue optics stared up at Sunstreaker through the mask. With another pat on Sideswipe’s belly, Sunstreaker added, “I didn’t spent two hours polishing and waxing you just so you could scuff it all up again.”

Sideswipe whined slightly again, but stayed still. Sunstreaker rubbed his hand in a circle on Sideswipe’s abdomen for a few minutes, enjoying the blissful look in Sideswipe’s optics. Then he checked his chronometer and sighed before giving Sideswipe a final pat. “But I think that’s enough for today.” He lifted his hand to the mask and brushed down its muzzle. Cupping the side of Sideswipe’s helm in his palm, he said, “I think it’s time for me to get my brother back. What do you say?”

Sideswipe’s hesitated, then nodded. He sat up and turned so that Sunstreaker could unbuckle the straps on the back of the mask.

Carefully, Sunstreaker slid the mask from Sideswipe’s helm and drew the gag from his mouth. He set the mask to the side as Sideswipe worked his jaw back and forth, then checked Sideswipe’s face with gentle fingers. “I think that’s the longest you’ve ever been in gear,” he said. He brushed his thumb against Sideswipe’s cheek where the edges of the gag had rested. “Was there any rubbing or irritation? Any pinching?”

Sideswipe shook his helm and curled up next to Sunstreaker, rather than being sprawled across Sunstreaker’s lap like he had been. “No. It was really comfortable.” He looked at the mask on the table and rested his helm on Sunstreaker’s shoulder. “Wheeljack outdid himself this time.”

“Agreed.” Sunstreaker picked up the cyberhound mask and looked at it critically. The mask was a huge improvement over the last mask they’d been using for their play scenes. For one thing, this mask actually looked like a cyberhound. The long snout was tipped with a pliable scent receptor, and flexible plates formed the sides and top. Long audials served to hide Sideswipe’s audial horns, and the optic holes in the mask were angled so that Sideswipe could only look straight ahead – just like a cyberhound. Inside the mask was a gag that was custom fit for Sideswipe, ensuring that the normally garrulous mech could do nothing but make unintelligible noises. Sunstreaker flipped the mask back around and rested it on his knee. “And it was a good choice in colours... The white looked amazing against your black helm,” Sunstreaker added.

“That was a good session, Sunny,” Sideswipe murmured. Sunstreaker turned his head to see that Sideswipe’s optics had closed, and he could feel his spark spinning calmly. Calm and quiet, for a change. “Adding the hand signal training was good... It really helped me focus.”

Sunstreaker smiled, glad that his idea had paid off already. He brushed his fingers along the smooth mesh of the mask’s muzzle. “This reminds me, though,” he said, setting the mask down again. “We still need to figure out costumes for that holiday Spike was telling us about.” He wrapped his arm around Sideswipe’s shoulders. “We’re running out of time to come up with something.”

Sideswipe hummed. “I thought that it had to be something scary, but it turned out it can be anything,” he said. 

Without thinking, Sunstreaker said, “It’s a shame we can’t just put the mask on you and go as hound and master.”

Sunstreaker was unprepared for the jolt of desire that came through the spark bond at his words. He looked down at Sideswipe in surprise to see his twin staring up at him with wide optics. “Can we?” Sideswipe whispered. 

Peering at Sideswipe closely, Sunstreaker frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, Wheeljack knows we do this. And Bluestreak and Ratchet. But...” He ran his hand down Sideswipe’s back again like he had when he was petting him. “This means everyone would know.”

“Everyone else will be in costume, too,” Sideswipe said. “It would be like hiding in plain sight. They would know, but they wouldn’t **know** that they know...” He shivered slightly.

Sunstreaker picked up the mask for a third time and held it up. “If we do that... It means a whole night of being in scene,” he said with a note of warning in his voice. “If your mask is on, you’re my pet.” He smoothed his hand down Sideswipe’s back again. “If either of us taps out for whatever reason, we’ll be done for the night. Would you be ok with that?”

Sideswipe nodded eagerly, his optics shining. “Oh, slag, yes,” he said. Then he shivered, and Sunstreaker could feel the thrill of anticipation in him. “Just think... Everyone seeing me like this... On all fours, even...”

With a smile, Sunstreaker set the mask aside. “All right,” he said, and laughed at Sideswipe’s eager wriggle. “Maybe we can even get Wheeljack to make you a matching tail.”


	9. Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** How about Prowl and Magic for the Halloween prompts?  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Brief description of “bloodletting” with a needle, teenaged Prowl being a little shit  
>  **AU:** Alt Modes and Alchemy, takes place several years before [The Renegade and the Hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966390/chapters/29641602) (minor spoilers for that story, but only if you think hard. It's not neccesary to have read that story to follow this.)

Putting truth to his designation, Prowl crept silently down the darkened hallway and paused at the door of the alchemy lab. He held his door wings out, feeling for any movement in the lab or down the hallway.

He could sense nothing. He was alone. Everything was going according to plan.

Flicking his door wings happily, Prowl carefully opened the door and slipped into the lab. He closed the door behind him and palmed on the illumination. In the flicker of the lab’s lights, Prowl made his way to the main workbench and set down his bundled scrolls.

He had memorized the list of items he needed: copper filings, mica flakes, solution of feldspar, calligraphy ink, a small iron disc, a crystal needle, a torbuk antler stylus, tongs, and an ampule. The last item was in a basket on the top shelf of the storage room, and Prowl had to drag a stool across the lab to reach it. But finally he had everything assembled on the workbench, and he reviewed the recipe he’d transcribed from the book in Master Auger’s personal library.

Prowl took a deep vent and picked up the needle. He figured that he might as well get the unpleasant part over with first. Then he hesitated. It had sounded so simple when he’d read it the first time: simply poke a hole in his glossa, and collect the energon on the stylus. He read the recipe again. How much energon did he need? And did it **have** to come from his glossa?

After another read-through of the recipe, Prowl steeled himself. Yes, it had to come from the glossa. That made sense: the glossa helped shape the words that came from the vocalizer. At least he didn’t need a piece of **that**.

He picked up the needle again, stared at it, and then set it back down. He slid off of the stool and ran across the lab to fetch the little mirror the Master kept in his desk. After climbing back onto the stool, he looked at himself in the mirror. 

After staring at his reflection for a long moment, Prowl opened his mouth and stuck out his glossa. He lifted the needle and held it up. _It’ll only hurt for a moment,_ he thought. Just a quick stab and it would be over. Still he hesitated, unable to bring the tip of the needle to his mesh.

This whole plan had seemed a lot easier when he was back up in his rooms. 

Prowl closed his optics tightly and held the needle between his digits tightly. On the count of three, he thought. _One... Two..._

“Whatcha doin’, Prowl?”

Prowl’s engine squealed and he whirled on the stool, dropping the needle in the process. Behind him, he saw the youngest prince staring up at him. The blue and silver youngling’s yellow chevron was barely higher than the workbench.

“What are you doing here, Silverstreak?” Prowl hissed, and slid off of the stool once more. He started hunting on the ground for the needle he’d dropped. “Aren’t you supposed to be in recharge?”

“I’m returning the book Master Auger loaned me,” Silverstreak said, holding up a thick tome. The cover of the book read _Beasts and Creatures of the Praxian Wilds_. “I borrowed it so I could read about the hellhounds, but it was a little too...” Silverstreak hesitated, his door wings flickering back and forth, obviously unwilling to admit that he had been frightened by a mere book. “I didn’t want the book in my room anymore, so I’m bringing it back. Master Auger said I could just drop it off when I was done. So I’m dropping it off now.” He slid the book up onto the workbench next to Prowl’s scrolls, then frowned at his brother. “You’re supposed to be in recharge, too. And...” Silverstreak glanced at the door, which was slightly open. Prowl caught a glimpse of a mech standing outside the door. “Where are your guards? Redline didn’t think there was anyone in here because your guards weren’t outside.”

“I... was just making a quick stop here,” Prowl said quietly. “They didn’t need to come along.” Prowl left out the fact that he’d snuck down the trellis outside his berthroom’s balcony so that his guards wouldn’t know he’d left them behind. Stooping to pick up the dropped needle, Prowl glared at Silverstreak. “And now that you’ve returned the book, you can go.”

Silverstreak’s optics had narrowed, and he crossed his arms over his small chest. “What’s with all the stuff you got out, huh? Why are you here in the middle of the night?” he asked. “You finished your alchemy studies last vorn, so you’re not doing schoolwork. You’re making something you’re not supposed to, aren’t you?”

Prowl’s door wings were flicking up and down as his brother talked. Fantastic. He knew that Silverstreak wouldn’t let this go now. If he tried to get his brother to leave, Silverstreak would just refuse, or – worse – he might tell someone what he saw Prowl doing. “I’m just... I’m making something to help me with my studies,” Prowl said finally. “And yeah, I finished alchemy already, but what’s the point of studying something if you never get to use it?”

Silverstreak considered this, then nodded. “That makes sense,” he said, then smiled. “Can I help?”

“No,” Prowl said with a soft vent. “But you can watch, only if you promise not to tell anyone.” Silverstreak nodded, grinning widely. “But keep your voice down! And go close the door, ok?” Then Prowl paused. Silverstreak’s guard standing outside would be a dead giveaway that the prince was in the lab. “Wait. Tell Redline to come in, then shut the door behind him.”

As Silverstreak ran back to the door, Prowl found a cloth and cleaned off the needle. He briefly considered asking his brother to help by donating **his** energon for the spell, but – Prowl shook his helm. No, this was his project. Besides, Silverstreak would probably whine or cry when his glossa got pricked, and it was important to stay quiet. He didn’t want the Master to wake up. 

Prowl focused on his reflection again as Silverstreak clambered onto the stool next to him. Prowl stuck out his glossa once more, but froze when he heard Silverstreak’s exclamation. “Prowl! You’re not going to... Energon cantrips are **dangerous**!” Silverstreak whispered. His door wings sat straight up and quivered slightly as he stared at the needle. “Master Auger said only **experienced** alchemists should use recipes with fresh energon in them!”

With a growl of his engine, Prowl steadied the mirror again. “I’ve finished my studies, so I’m experienced enough,” he said, trying to sound confident. “And it’s just a drop... Just enough to activate the energies in the other materials.” Then, before he could lose his nerve again, Prowl shut his optics and stuck the needle into his glossa.

It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. A single prick of pain, and it was over. Prowl realized that the buildup had been much worse than the actual event, and he filed that information away for later.

He collected a few drops of his energon on the torbuk stylus as Silverstreak watched with wide optics. Then he smeared the bright energon onto the iron disc and carefully started mixing the other ingredients in the ampule.

It didn’t take long at all. Silverstreak peppered him with questions as Prowl carefully dotted the disc with the mixed ingredients. Prowl answered his brother as best he could, proud to show off his knowledge. 

Prowl lit the workbench’s burner and used the tongs to hold the disc in the flame. In a quiet voice he recited the cantrip from the Masters’ scroll. “Listen for me. Speak to me. Hear for me. Recite to me.” He turned the disc over and heated the other side until it glowed a bright red. “Serve as my audial’s glossa. Remember the words of the past, and speak them in the future.”

He carefully set the disc on the workbench for it to cool. Silverstreak peered at the disc, his door wings still held out behind him. “That seemed simple enough. What does it do?” Silverstreak asked quietly. He looked up at Prowl. “I know it’s a charm of some kind, but I don’t think I’ve studied anything like this stuff yet.”

Gathering up the ingredients, Prowl said, “It’s a recording device. It’ll listen to what the Masters say, and then repeat it back to me later, when I’m studying.” He set the jar of copper filings into its place on the shelf. “This way, if I miss something in one of their lectures, I can just play it back.”

Silverstreak slumped onto the workbench, and his door wings drooped slightly. “It figures you’d just be looking for a more efficient way to study,” he groused. “Here I thought you were making something fun.”

Prowl smiled as he slid back onto his stool. “Well, I think this is fun,” he said. He tentatively touched the disc, then picked it up when he felt that it was cool enough to hold. “Now let’s see if it works.”

Ignoring Silverstreak as the youngling leaned closer, Prowl tapped the center of the disc. His door wings wiggled in excitement when he saw the disc begin to glow with a pale yellow light. “Ruby is red and sapphire is blue, I’ve grown the sweetest crystals for you,” Prowl recited softly, then tapped the disc again. The glow faded out.

Silverstreak stared at the disc. “How do you make it play back?” he asked, his door wings wiggling in almost the same way as Prowl’s. His earlier boredom with the charm seemed to have evaporated after seeing it in action. 

Prowl flipped the disc over and tapped the other side. The yellow glow returned, and Prowl’s voice emanated from the disc. “Ruby is red and sapphire is blue, I’ve grown the sweetest crystals for you.”

“Neat!” Silverstreak’s door wings popped back up above his shoulders. Prowl could almost see his younger brother’s processor coming up with ways to use the charm in a prank on Smokescreen. “And can you make it remember more, or does it only remember one thing at a time?”

Prowl was about to reply when the charm repeated the sparkling rhyme it had recited before. “Ruby is red and sapphire is blue, I’ve grown the sweetest crystals for you.” It sounded a bit louder than it had been.

Frowning, Prowl tapped the disc, trying to make the glow fade out again. It only grew brighter... and still louder. **"Ruby is red and sapphire is blue, I’ve grown the sweetest crystals for you."**

“It’s not supposed to do that, is it?” Silverstreak asked. He glanced at the door at the far end of the lab, which led to a stairwell that went straight up to Master Auger’s apartments. “Uh, Prowl, how do you make it stop? Or make it quieter?”

“I don’t know,” Prowl said, his door wings rising in alarm. “This is supposed to make it stop!” Prowl frantically stabbed his digit into the disc, then tried the other side. Nothing he did seemed to have any effect. In fact, the rhyme got even louder. 

**"Ruby is red and sapphire is blue, I’ve grown the sweetest crystals for you."**

Looking up wildly, Prowl saw Silverstreak’s guard standing by the door, looking for all the world like he was trying to suppress a smile. Prowl glanced around the room, trying to find something to muffle the sound with. When he couldn’t find anything, Prowl shoved the charm into his compartments. It did very little to muffle the sound; if anything, it seemed to amplify the voice.

**"RUBY IS RED AND SAPPHIRE IS BLUE, I’VE GROWN THE SWEETEST CRYSTALS FOR YOU."**

Silverstreak had sidled his way off of the stool and half-walked, half-ran towards the door. “Um, well, I guess you’ve got some kinks to work out of that charm,” he said, raising his voice over the one echoing out of Prowl’s compartments. “Like you said, I should probably be in recharge, so... Let’s go, Redline! Night, Prowl!” Silverstreak yanked opened the lab’s door. Then he jumped back with a squeal when he saw there was a mech standing just outside.

“Your Highness,” said Trident. Prowl’s guard took a step into the lab, his optics sweeping the scene: Redline standing with Prince Silverstreak near the door, while Prince Prowl sat on a workbench stool, curled into a ball as he tried to muffle the voice coming from his midsection. Trident crossed his arms over his chest. “I see that you’ve made use of the trellis again.”

**“RUBY IS RED AND SAPPHIRE IS BLUE, I’VE GROWN THE SWEETEST CRYSTALS FOR YOU.”**

“I’m sorry, Trident!” Prowl said over the booming voice. He hopped off the stool and ran towards the door. “But not now! Just get me back up to my –“

A new voice thundered out from the far end of the lab. “By the wings of Primus, **_what is going on here?_** ”

Everyone froze as Master Auger stormed out of the stairwell that led to his quarters. He glared around the lab. Silverstreak stood half behind his huge guard, his door wings flat against his back and his optics wide as saucers. Trident still stood by the door, his arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face. And Prowl hunched over, desperately willing the charm to stop talking, or for the floor to open up and swallow him. Either one would have been gratefully received.

**“RUBY IS RED AND SAPPHIRE IS BLUE, I’VE GROWN THE SWEETEST CRYSTALS FOR YOU.”**

“What is that noise? Is it coming from you?” Auger strode over to Prowl and stood in front of him with his hands on his hips.

Prowl slowly straightened from the partial crouch he was in. It took an effort, but Prowl spread his door wings wide and lifted his chin. He pulled the charm from his compartments. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Auger held out his hand for the charm, and Prowl handed it to him. The Master held the charm up to his optic and looked at it closely.

**“RUBY IS RED AND SAPPHIRE IS BLUE, I’VE GROWN THE SWEETEST CRYSTALS FOR YOU.”**

“A dictation charm, hmm?” He stared at Prowl until the young prince dropped his optics. 

Prowl nodded. There wasn’t any point in trying to lie to the Master Alchemist. 

With a grumble from his engine, Auger strode over to the mercury tank against the wall and dropped the charm in. 

**“RUBY IS RED AND SAPPHIRE IS BLUE, I’VE –“**

The charm was silenced instantly. Prowl’s door wings sank. **That** was all he’d had to do? **That** would have saved him from this trouble? 

“You’re a good student, Prowl. I’m surprised you didn’t remember how to counteract minor charms,” said Auger, and smiled as realization spread across Prowl’s face. “But I’ll deal with you in a klik. What are **you** doing here, Prince Silverstreak?” Auger asked, turning to the other prince. “Both of you know better than to enter my laboratory and use the equipment without permission. But I’m especially surprised at you, Silverstreak, since we just finished going over lab safety a few cycles ago.” 

Prowl could tell that Silverstreak was bravely trying to raise his door wings, but couldn’t quite manage it. He watched Silverstreak gnaw on his lower lip before saying, “I’m sorry, Master Auger.” Silverstreak’s vocaliser quavered as he spoke. “It... it won’t happen again.” The young prince’s door wings fell flat against his back again as soon as he stopped talking.

“He didn’t do anything with the charm, sir,” Prowl said. When Auger turned to face him, Prowl stood as tall as he could. “He just happened to be here returning your book. The charm was all my doing.”

Out of the corner of his optic, Prowl saw Silverstreak give him a grateful look.

Auger glanced at the workbench, where the book sat forgotten, and nodded. “Off you go, Silverstreak,” he said. “But I expect you to be on time for your studies tomorrow.”

“Yes sir thank you sir good night sir!” Silverstreak chittered, then bolted from the room, Redline on his heels.

“As for you, Prince Prowl,” Auger said coldly, and Prowl felt his spark sink. “Let’s see what you were up to.” The Master picked up the scroll that Prowl had transcribed and read it over. 

Every moment of silence felt like a vorn to Prowl. He’d ‘borrowed’ the book from the Master’s private library without permission. He’d transcribed the recipe. He’d created a charm using fresh energon. He’d used the lab and the Master’s materials without permission. Prowl closed his optics and waited. There was no way he was going to get out of this without some kind of punishment.

“Do you have any ideas about where you went wrong, Prowl?”

“Sir?” Prowl opened his optics and looked at the Master, who was smiling at him. Prowl gaped at the Master. “Um...” Prowl’s door wings swiveled as he thought. “No. I don’t.”

Auger set the scroll back down on the workbench. “You made a simple transcription error, and left out an ingredient... which you probably would have noticed had we spent more time on energon charms. But you know of their danger... That’s why we didn’t study creating them in any depth.” Auger smiled. “My fault, I suppose, for not at least covering the basics of their creation.”

Prowl blinked at Auger, unable to believe his audials. “Sir?” he asked again, and dared to lift his door wings. 

“Which is not to say that you’re forgiven for using the lab without permission, or for attempting to create an energon charm,” Auger said. He rolled up Prowl’s scroll and waved it at the prince. “But if you return tomorrow morning with Silverstreak, we’ll go over the basic components of energon charms... And we’ll review why you shouldn’t use them.” When Prowl nodded, he added, “And then I expect three scrolls of research afterwards from you explaining why energon charms should be avoided. If you do that, then... I don’t think your sire needs to know about your little failed experiment here.”

Relief cascaded through Prowl like a warm oil bath. “Yes, sir!” Prowl said immediately. He bowed to the Master Alchemist. “Thank you very much, sir!”

“All right, get out of here. I think you’re going to get an audial full from your guard next,” Auger said, smiling at Trident. One look at Trident told Prowl that Auger was probably right. “I’ll see you in the morning.” As Prowl turned to leave, he said, “Oh, and Prowl? Next time... Just ask for permission.”

Prowl ignored the quiet chuckle from Trident. “Yes sir. I will. Have a good night.”


	10. Lantern

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Lantern for the prompt?  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Canon-typical violence
> 
> This is a continuation from [Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501/chapters/37992092).

Lifting the lantern over his helm, Bluestreak scanned the ground in front of him. There, something had scuffed the stone. Here, a trace in the dirt gave away direction. Beyond that, a broken crystal shard lay on the ground. Hound may have been their best tracker, but Bluestreak had learned enough from his friend to know that that they were going the right way.

He fanned his sensor wings out, attentive for any trace of movement in the dense crystal forest, or any whisper of an EM field. Bluestreak paused, focusing on his sensor input, then turned and took a slightly different track through the crystals. 

He had to be out here somewhere.

“This is pointless,” Cliffjumper grumbled. His optics were scanning the forest around them, and he missed the dangerous glare that Bluestreak gave him. “Even if we catch him, he’s just going to run off again. It’s a waste of time and effort: we should be focusing on the Decepticons!”

“It’s not pointless,” Bluestreak growled. He stopped to look at a crumble of dust at the base of a tall pylon. “Wheeljack is pretty sure they’ve figured out a way to repair him.”

“Because the last ‘fix’ they did worked so well,” Cliffjumper said with a roll of his optics. “Great.” 

Even as his irritation with the minibot’s pessimism grew, Bluestreak had to admit he had a point.

After seeing two iterations of Hound’s satellite-induced transformation, Ratchet and Wheeljack developed a treatment. Unfortunately, they had no one to test it on except Hound. He accepted; what else could he do? So they administered it a few days before the next full moon and waited.

The treatment didn’t stop the transformation from happening. His transformation cog still ran its corrupted code and turned him into the hellhound form he’d developed with the condition. But on the plus side, the treatment kept him rational during the transformation. He was still himself, and not the feral creature he’d been turning into. He was even able to engage in conversation, albeit only over his shortrange comms. The new structure of his intake was unable to form intelligible words for him to speak verbally.

Everything seemed great. But then, when the moon set, he didn’t turn back.

Hound’s transformation cog had seized, and nothing Ratchet did seemed to solve the problem. They kept him in the med bay for days as they tried to figure out the issue, but nothing they tried worked. There was no solution in sight, and it seemed cruel to keep him locked up in the reinforced recovery room like a Decepticon. At Wheeljack’s urging, the command staff agreed to let him work on tasks around the base, with supervision. He was surprisingly fast on all fours, possibly even faster than he’d been in his original alt mode, so he was quickly given courier tasks to perform.

It was unnerving, though, watching him fuel. He couldn’t manage the cubes that every other mech used to ingest their energon, and he now preferred his energon warm and reprocessed. To sate his hunger, he started hunting the glitchmice that infested the base until Perceptor set him up with a regular supply of petrorabbits he could consume. No one liked watching him do it, though, so he started taking his fuel in his quarters.

But then he started to lose his temper. Mild-mannered, calm, patient Hound began having explosions of anger that rivalled even Sunstreaker’s episodes.

Hound would become snappish and surly without any warning, usually in a flash of anger at someone specific. Then he threw an energon cube at Gears, and he was taken back to med bay. His code was examined again. They found nothing amiss. A few days later he pinned Tracks up against the wall, snarling at some rude comment the blue mech had made. Ironhide hauled Hound down to the brig for that, and Red Alert insisted that the science team fix whatever was wrong with Hound’s code before he was released again. Optimus Prime reluctantly agreed with the head of security; Hound’s outbursts had starting posing a danger to himself and others.

Then Hound had thrown Wheeljack to the ground in his cell and stood over the engineer, snapping his sharpened dentae over his helm. Wheeljack said he had been sure that he was about to be bitten, but then Hound had paused, and his expression changed to one of horror.

“I could feel he was angry as slag,” Wheeljack said later. “I don’t blame him - I should have warned him that the rerouter I was trying to install was going to hurt. But then, right when I thought he was gonna rip my face off, I felt him go all sick with shock. I think he realized what he was doing, and he was appalled.” Wheeljack had rubbed the back of his neck as he explained to Prowl and the security team where Hound had gone. “And then he jumped out the open cell door and took off.”

Hound hadn’t been seen since. Two full weeks had gone by since he had fled into the forest.

“They should just set out some traps, and if they catch him, fine. If not, whatever.” Cliffjumper was not letting it drop. The minibot looked around at the towering crystals that surrounded them. “It’s bad enough we’ve got to do patrols in this place. Now they’ve got us hunting hellhounds? It’s insane.”

“He’s not a hellhound,” Bluestreak said, snapping his sensor wings out. “He’s an Autobot. He’s one of our best scouts. He’s my **friend**. And we’re going to find him.” He paused to examine another track on the ground, then moved on. “Besides, he’s not an animal. He’s too smart to walk into a trap.”

“He **wasn’t** an animal,” Cliffjumper said with a sniff. “Who knows what he is **now**?”

Bluestreak’s engine growled in warning, and Cliffjumper finally quieted.

Ahead was a clearing, and Bluestreak stopped. He pulled out the deactivated petrorabbit he’d been carrying, and turned to Cliffjumper. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m sure he’s in the area. I’m going to try to lure him out and talk to him. Maybe I can get him to come back with us without having to resort to these.” He hefted his stun rifle.

“Talk to him?” Cliffjumper asked incredulously. “What are you going to say: ruff, ruff, awoo?”

“Just let me try,” Bluestreak said imploringly. “He won’t hurt me.”

“It’s your funeral,” Cliffjumper said. “But I’ll make sure he doesn’t try anything. And if he comes after me, I’m taking him down.” He waved his rifle in the air.

“He won’t,” Bluestreak replied, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “Hold this for me.” He handed Cliffjumper his own rifle, and walked into the clearing.

Bluestreak put down the lantern, and set the petrorabbit frame down a few steps beyond it. Then he sat on the opposite side of the lantern, and waited.

Two hours went by. Bluestreak sat as still as he could, doing nothing but listening and feeling the darkness around him. Luna 1’s crescent dropped behind the crystals, and the forest grew even darker. It was not silent though; a myriad of small noises surrounded him. But he was focused on finding one specific signal in the night.

In the third hour, Bluestreak sensed the signal he’d been waiting for, moving carefully through the crystals. The mech moved forward a few steps, then paused, then moved again, slinking from shadow to shadow. As it grew closer, Bluestreak was able to pick out his general shape with his sensors, and he smiled hopefully.

He looked out into the shadows surrounding the small clearing. He could see nothing moving with his optics, but his sensor wings gave him much more information. “Hello, Hound,” Bluestreak said quietly. “I brought you a petrorabbit, if you needed fuel.”

The mech hesitated, then moved forward again. Slowly, he crept into the clearing.

Hound’s optics were clear of the rage that had so frequently clouded them in his last few days on base. He looked at Bluestreak, then at the petrorabbit on the ground between them, then at the shadows behind Bluestreak where Cliffjumper sat watching. 

Bluestreak’s comms crackled to life. ::You aren’t afraid of me?:: Hound’s question was tentative, tagged with glyphs of shame. 

“I’ve never been afraid of you,” Bluestreak said truthfully. To be fair, he hadn’t been present for the worst of Hound’s outbursts, but he could not believe that his soft-spoken, friendly patrol partner would ever harm him. Not on purpose.

::Why is Cliffjumper hiding back there with a rifle?:: The plating over Hound’s shoulders lifted, giving him a more spiked appearance.

“They wouldn’t let me come out here alone.” Bluestreak lowered his door wings and extended his field as much as he could, filling it with his deepest sincerity. “I promise that we won’t hurt you.” He slowly gestured towards the petrorabbit. “Go on.”

Hound looked at the petrorabbit again, and crawled forward another few steps until he could reach it. Bluestreak steeled his resolve not to flinch or look away when Hound ripped out the petrorabbit’s fuel line and noisily consumed all of the mechanimal’s energon. The slurping and crunching noises turned Bluestreak’s tanks, but he gritted his dentae and sat still.

“We’re here to bring you back to base,” Bluestreak said when Hound had finished. Hound’s audials flattened slightly, and Bluestreak smiled encouragingly. “Wheeljack thinks they have a fix for you, for real this time. They think they know how to repair you.”

::Wheeljack still wants to help me? After what I did to him?:: Hound’s comm was incredulous.

“We’re all worried about you, Hound,” Bluestreak said. He reached out his hand, holding it palm up. “And I miss you. There was a sunset yesterday that I wanted to tell you about, but... You weren’t there.” When Hound’s audials tipped upwards slightly, Bluestreak reached his hand out further. “Please... Let me take you back home.”

Hound’s optics never left Bluestreak’s. He crept forward another few steps, past the lantern, then lifted his muzzled helm towards Bluestreak’s hand.

A loud crack of a rifle sounded from the crystals behind Bluestreak. Whirling in a scrabble of claws on stone, Hound fled, vanishing in a flash of jagged green plating.

“ **No!** ” Bluestreak screamed, lurching forward, but Hound was gone.

Cliffjumper emerged from behind the crystal where he’d been hiding, hefting the rifle over his shoulder. “I missed,” he grumbled, then squeaked as Bluestreak pushed him up against another crystal.

“ **Why?** ” Bluestreak yelled, his face just inches from Cliffjumper’s. “Why did you do that? He was going to come with me! Now you’ve scared him off and he’ll **never** –“ His vocaliser cracked into static.

Cliffjumper squirmed, trying to free himself from Bluestreak’s grasp. “He was going to bite you. He lunged at you!”

Bluestreak gaped wordlessly at Cliffjumper for a long moment. “No, he didn’t! He was going to let me touch him, and then...” With a growl, Bluestreak gave Cliffjumper another shove. “He’s never going to trust us now,” he said quietly, turning to look back the way Hound had run.

Brushing non-existent dust from his chest plating, Cliffjumper retrieved his rifle from the ground where he’d dropped it. “Whatever,” he muttered. “Now they can try the traps. Let’s get back to base and file our report.”

“Yes,” Bluestreak growled, grabbing his rifle and turning to get the lantern. “Let’s.” 

He picked up the lantern, then stared into the darkness once more. On the comm frequency that Hound had used, Bluestreak sent out a series of simple glyphs, hoping that Hound would hear them regardless of how far he’d run.

::I’m sorry. I meant no harm. Come home. I miss you, friend.::


	11. Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Continuity:** Transformers: Prime  
>  **Warnings:** None

The _Nemesis_ went where Lord Megatron commanded, of course. His plans and goals were paramount; everything else was secondary to their leader’s wishes.

But when the _Nemesis_ found itself in a cool, remote place on this blue planet, Soundwave waited for night to fall. Then he would fly a short distance from the ship so he could get away from its racket. Even as heavily shielded as it was, the _Nemesis_ was surprisingly noisy... If you knew how to listen.

Soundwave took these moments when he could fly away from the ship and all its background noise, just to listen.

On one such night, Soundwave stepped out onto the upper deck of the ship, transformed, and flew to a mountain peak in the distance. Below him, moonlight glittered on the water that covered so much of this planet, and lights from ships dotted the darkness.

The island came up quickly, with its tiny settlement that was so easily disregarded. The mountain on the island was not very high in comparison to the tallest peaks on this planet, but it towered above the endless sea that spread in all directions. This remote island, with its remote peak, was Soundwave’s favourite location to stand and to listen... And to remember.

Landing with economic grace on the peak of the mountain, Soundwave turned all of his sensors to the starlit sky and listened.

Below him, human voices chattered in their houses. He tuned them out. In the distance, he could hear the murmurings of the mechs on the Nemesis, and the almost inaudible rumble of its engines. He filtered them out as well. A thousand miles east, he heard the crackle and pop of a growing storm. It would be here in a day or so, but he would be long gone by then. 

Above that, he heard the whistle and groan of radio ghosts. He paused and listened to them, running an analysis to see if there were voices in those whispers, or glyphs from Decepticons trying to reach their Lord. But like always, Soundwave heard nothing definitive in the garbled murmurs. He went back to ignoring them.

Finally, Soundwave turned his attention to space. Past the noise of the humans’ pitiful satellite network and the rudimentary communications with their probes, Soundwave listened. 

He was looking any signal, of course, that would mean another Decepticon to add to Lord Megatron’s ranks. But he was also searching for a very specific signal. He listened for a response to his messages.

Soundwave’s visor reflected the glittering stars as he scanned the frequencies, motionless. 

He heard nothing.

Soundwave brought his transmitter online, and sent the same hail he had sent for years. He had tracked where he had sent his message before, and so he directed his transmission to a new area of space.

::Soundwave to Ravage. Respond.:: He followed the message with the coordinates of this system.

He sent the burst five times at standard intervals before shutting down his transmitter.

Soundwave lifted his long arm and ran his fingers down Laserbeak’s plating where she was docked on his chest. He felt her drowsy contentment, and soothed her back into recharge.

Then his fingers dipped into the empty area around where Laserbeak rested, where there was room for one more minicon. He paused. How long had it been since he’d had both Laserbeak and Ravage docked onto his chest together? 

His memory immediately supplied the length of time, measured in thousands of years, but Soundwave shunted the data into a secondary queue. It was unimportant right now.

Leaping into the air, Soundwave transformed and began his flight back to the ship. There was work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When picturing the island Soundwave flew to, I was thinking of [Tristan da Cunha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_da_Cunha). It's a tiny archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic between the southern points of Africa and South America. It's totally on my bucket list to go there, someday. :)


	12. Monster (Redux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Monster; Knock Out maybe something where the terrorcons in season 3 of Tfp actually managed to get him.  
>  **Rating:** M  
>  **Continuity:** Prime  
>  **Warnings:** Canon-typical violence, zombies
> 
> A duplicate prompt for "Monster." I had this story all planned out and then read the fill that [roseymoseyberry](http://roseymoseyberry.tumblr.com/) wrote to essentially the same prompt. (There are two: [a scary/sad one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356161/chapters/38273726) and [a silly one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356161/chapters/38273834#workskin). Read them both!!) They trended along the same story I was thinking of, so I decided to take a different tact.
> 
> This is what I came up with: mashing together the episode [Thirst](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Thirst) with [Shaun of the Dead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_of_the_Dead). ^.^

Knock Out would never admit to the shrill shriek that escaped him when the monster that used to be Breakdown snagged his leg, tripping him and sending him to the floor with a clatter.

“Starscream! Help! Get him off of me!” Knock Out yelled, only to be answered by the ting ting ting of the Air Commander’s thrusters pounding the deck as he ran away. “Starscream!” Knock Out futilely shoved at the bulk that was half crouched over him, half sitting on him. “I’m going to eat you first when I get turned!”

Speaking of which…

The monster than used to be Breakdown gaped its horrid jaws at him, and the prehensile glossa snaked out. Along with the reformed appendage came a waft of a foul odor. Knock Out briefly regretted not finding some way to give Silas a bath or something; surely that’s where the stench was coming from.

Knock Out turned his helm away as the monster than used to be Breakdown leaned down further atop him. Maybe he could just close his optics and think of Cybertron, and wait for it to all be over.

The thing shifted on top of him, and Knock Out gave another half-sparked shove, trying to dislodge it. When the bulk didn’t even budge, Knock Out let his arms drop, splaying them outwards. “Just get it over with,” he hissed, and closed his optics. 

Then he felt a blunt finger trace the edge of his left headlight. Immediately, Knock Out arched into the touch. “Yes,” he whispered. If the thing kept doing that, Knock Out could imagine it really was Breakdown on top of him, just like it was before he - 

When nothing happened, Knock Out cracked open an optic and looked at the thing that used to be Breakdown. The Terrorcon’s helm was tipped slightly to the side, and its malformed jaw gaped open. It was staring at him with the expression of a dumb animal.

Then it repeated the motion, deliberately dragging a finger around the glass of the headlight.

“Breakdown!” Knock Out gasped as the touch sent another thrill through him. No – this was not Breakdown. Breakdown was dead, and this was just his shell, inhabited by a monster. But slag if it didn’t feel like the monster was trying to get him charged.

Knock Out stared up at the thing. Something nagged at his memory. Something about a study... Then his optics widened as his processor suddenly supplied him with details of a medical study he’d read, back during his training in the Velocitron Medical Academy. It had been a study on mechanical memory, sequences of movements that could be trained into a mech’s firmware through repetition, movements that could be performed even when the processor was offline.

Knock Out might have been out of the Academy for millennia, and thousands of years of war stood between him and his old medical practice. He might be on the verge of deactivation at the hands of an old partner turned zombie, but... He was **still** a doctor. He was **still** interested in science, frag it.

And - in the interests of science, he told himself - Knock Out reached up and dragged two fingers down Breakdown’s tires, the clawed tips digging into the tire treads.

The reaction was as immediate as it was surprising. The thing that used to be Breakdown shuddered, its helm lowering, and a look of pleasure flickered briefly across its face. 

“Breakdown?” Knock Out whispered, a plan starting to form in his processor.

Then the thing that used to be Breakdown lifted its helm once more and hissed at him. “Energon...”

If there was even a chance this would work, Knock Out was willing to try it. “Hey there, big boy,” Knock Out purred, digging into his memory for how he used to say those words. Then he repeated the movement he’d just made, clawing at Breakdown’s rugged tires. “Let’s make a deal.”

* * *

“What do you mean you’ve tamed it?” Starscream asked haughtily.

“No thanks to you,” Knock Out growled. He finished attaching the new pad to the buffer. “But so long as I keep him in energon, he’s perfectly docile. Look at him!” Knock Out gestured at the greying blue behemoth on the other side of the lab.

Looking up, the thing that used to be Breakdown gave Knock Out a broad smile. “Energon,” it moaned, and then stuck the dispenser nozzle back in its intake and started guzzling fuel again.

Starscream shuddered delicately, his wings twitching with his movements. “All right, fine, so you’ve managed to keep it from attacking anyone... For now,” he sneered. “But whatever for?”

Knock Out held up the rotary buffer. “Breakdown always was a maestro with one of these,” he said, then snapped his fingers at the Terrorcon. “Come here, boy,” he crooned. When the thing looked up, Knock Out crooked a finger at it. “Come show the Air Commander what you can do.”

The thing lurched to its pedes and clomped its way over to Knock Out. It ignored Starscream as the Air Commander flinched away from it, and wobbled to a stop in front of Knock Out. It took the buffer from him, and stood there for a moment, drooling slightly.

“Start on my fenders, would you?” Knock Out asked, and held up his forearm. 

Flicking the switch on the buffer, the thing that used to be Breakdown set the rotating brush against Knock Out’s plating, and began buffing the scuffs off of the speedster’s armor.

“See, Starscream?” Knock Out said, flashing the jet a smile. “Motor memory is a powerful thing! So long as I can keep him in energon, Breakdown here is going to make sure that I’m always looking my best.” Knock Out turned his smile to his old partner. “Isn’t that right, boy?”

“Energon,” the thing that used to be Breakdown groaned in agreement, and turned its attention to Knock Out’s other fender.


	13. Treats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Hello, I'd like to request treats for the bingo prompt. Thank you for all the stories so far!  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** None

It started, as most things did at the Decepticon base, with an argument.

“You’re crazy.” 

“I’m telling you, I was considered a master chef back on Cybertron,” Skywarp said. He nudged the mech sitting next to him with his elbow. “Tell them, TC.”

“No, you weren’t,” said Thundercracker, barely even looking up from his data pad.

“I was, too!” Skywarp flared his wings indignantly. “You just don’t appreciate a master’s work.”

Thundercracker finally looked up at his trinemate. “You tried making cobalt squares last month. The gel didn’t set right, and they tasted like boron.” He shuddered at the memory of the taste. 

At the other end of the mess hall table, Scrapper slapped the table to get Skywarp’s attention again. “Look, I don’t care if you **think** you’re good... Mixmaster’s name literally means he’s a master mixologist.” He gestured at Mixmaster, who sat smiling quietly under his gestalt mate’s compliments. “If it can be mixed, infused, stirred, blended, or ignited, Mixmaster can cook circles around you.”

“It takes more than just being able to mix things together to make something good,” said Blitzwing. Thundercracker looked over in surprise; he hadn’t even realized that the triple-changer had been listening to the conversation. “You have to know what tastes good.”

“And what would you know about good taste?” said Skywarp, his face twisting into a sneer. “I mean, look at your paint job.”

“What’s wrong with my paint job?” Blitzwing snarled back.

“Blitzwing is right,” said Mixmaster, speaking up finally. “You can’t just mix things willy-nilly. It’s an art. But you airheads,” he added, gesturing at Skywarp and Blitzwing, “have no idea what that means.” 

The mess hall devolved into chaos as Blitzwing, Skywarp and the Constructicons all started shouting at each other. Thundercracker was just about to turn off his audials when a commanding voice overrode everyone else talking.

“Soundwave: superior chef. All others: inferior.”

The stunned silence in the rec room lasted until Skywarp said, “That’s a load of slag. What does an overgrown speaker know about cooking?”

And the hall descended into shouting once more.

* * *

The command team stared at the images that Mirage had brought back from the Victory for several minutes before anyone said anything.

Finally, Prowl said, “I do not understand what we are looking at.” 

“Well,” Jazz said, flipping through the images to find the one he was looking for. He gestured up at the screen. “That banner there just ‘bout says it all.”

The image showed the Decepticon mess hall, with several mechs standing behind a table that was laden with energon treats.

“The Great Decepticon Mixoff.” Optimus Prime read the banner out loud, then shrugged. “So this was a contest of some sort?”

Jazz nodded and leaned back in his chair. He continued flipping through the images again. “Yup. Sounds like a bunch of mechs got their thrusters in a knot about who could whip up the best treat, so ol’ Megs finally made them settle their differences with a contest.” He tipped his helm towards Prowl and said, “Ya might want to have a word with Sideswipe, Prowler... It sounds like he got commissioned by Swindle to make his crater crunch things for him.”

Prowl heaved a tired-sounding vent and nodded, making a note on his data pad.

“Is that Shockwave with a plate of treats?” Ironhide asked. When Jazz nodded, Ironhide shuddered. “Ugh. There aren’t enough credits in the galaxy for me to try anything he made.”

“You’re not the only one,” Jazz said. He advanced the images again. “Not a single ‘Con tried his stuff. Not even Wildrider.” He frowned. “I wish at least one of them woulda tried them... I’m kinda curious now to see what mighta happened.”

Wheeljack was still peering up at the screen. “So do we know who won?”

“Well, obviously it would have been Mixmaster,” Ratchet said.

“Wrong!” Jazz twirled around in his chair. “Try again.”

“Please don’t tell me Sideswipe’s treats won,” Prowl said, rubbing the side of his helm.

Jazz patted Prowl’s arm. “Don’t worry,” he said. “No need to extend his brig time for that.”

Ironhide huffed. “Just tell us who won, Jazz,” he said, crossing his arms.

Jazz advanced the images one more time to show a mech holding a trophy and standing next to a nearly empty plate of treats. At the exclamations from the other Autobots, Jazz whirled back around and grinned at the room. “Apparently Soundwave mixes up treats all the time for his cassettes, and he’s a slaggin’ genius when it comes to additives.” 

Prowl leaned forward slightly, his optics fixed on the screen. He dropped his voice so that only Jazz could hear him over the conversation that rose in the meeting room. “Are those... rust sticks?”

Nodding, Jazz leaned close to Prowl’s audial. “Better... they’re copper-filled rust sticks.” He smiled at the way Prowl’s optics brightened, and added, “And best of all.. ‘Raj brought me back a sample. I’ll see ya in yer office later, Prowler.”

“Yes. Please.” Prowl’s optics practically shone as he stared at the image of the Decepticon’s communications officer and the delectable treats he’d created. “I am already looking forward to it.”


	14. Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Loneliness, isolation
> 
> This is a continuation from [Lantern](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501/chapters/38154950).

::Maintenance Team Epsilon to base, requesting a comms check.::

::Base to Team Epsilon, you’re comin’ in clear as a bell. How are you reading?::

::All good here, too. We didn’t know if Sentinel Hill was going to block our comms from here. Thanks for the check, Blaster.::

::Any time, Grapple. Base out.::

::Patrol Bravo Sigma to base for status report.::

::Base to Bravo Sigma, go ahead.::

::We’ve progressed to 159.493. Same old, same old, nothing to report. No activity, Decepticon or otherwise. Haven’t even seen any wildlife, which is a little weird. Just the usual dense crystals and creepy slagging sounds out here.::

::Copy that, Bee. Keep your optics open and your rifles warm, ya hear?::

::Don’t have to tell me twice. Bravo Sigma out.::

Hound closed his optics as he listened to the comm chatter. He knew it was likely only a matter of weeks before they switched the comm codes as part of their routine security rotation. Unless Hound could find out the new codes, he wouldn’t be able to listen to the Autobots’ comms once that happened.

But until then, he intended to listen as often as he could. Considering he could only pick up the comms one night a month, though, this was probably the last time he’d be able to spend the night listening to his old friends.

The “fix” that Ratchet and Wheeljack had installed had locked him in his new hellhound mode. It kept him sane – mostly – but a lot of his other basic functions were disabled. He could still bring in short range comms, but his long range receiver had been completely disabled while in beast mode. Wheeljack had been working on a fix for that before Hound had –

Hound worked his intake as a wave of despair washed over him. He waited for it to settle, then opened his optics again and looked up at the stars.

Wheeljack had been working on a fix for his long range receiver before Hound had lashed out at him and run off, horrified by what he’d done. So Hound was still stuck with only short range comms... Until the next full moon.

The first full moon after Hound had ran from the base, he woke just after sunset to discover he’d changed back to his root mode. Everything was back to normal: he could transform, his comms worked, his hologram projector worked, and he didn’t feel the simmering range lurking in the back of his processor. He almost drove straight back to base to give them the good news.

What held him back, though, was the thought of the reception he’d receive. He remembered the horrified looks on the other Autobots’ faces when they saw him roaming the halls in his hellhound form. He remembered the disgust at seeing him devour a petrorabbit carcass in the mess hall. He remembered overhearing their jokes and seeing their suspicious glances. So he hesitated.

He had been right to wait. When the moon had set, Hound changed back to his hellhound form. Once more, he was stuck in that form.

Before he’d discovered the new pattern to his shifting, Hound had resigned himself to living alone in the crystal forests outside of Tagan Heights. But when Bluestreak had come with a gift of fuel and a genuine overture of friendship, Hound realized that he was not cut out to live a solitary existence. He missed his friends. He wanted someone to talk to. He yearned for those casual, daily interactions.

After Hound realized the new effect that the full moon had on him, he established a routine. When Luna 1 was full and Hound could switch back to his normal shape, he would sneak as close to the base as he dared. Then, he would just listen to the general Autobot frequency on his receiver.

Simply listening to the voices soothed him. He could pretend everything was normal, that the past few months had simply been a corrupted memory. As he heard each voice over the comms, he wondered how they were doing. What had they been up to? Were there any interesting stories he’d missed? Who won the Primes and Drones tournament? Had Prowl finally busted Sideswipe for his energon distiller?

But even when he was in his root mode, like tonight, he didn’t trust any of the voices he heard over the comm channels. Hound knew that most of the other Autobots would probably react to him like Cliffjumper had, with apprehension and fear. He didn’t blame them. Hound himself was appalled at what he’d done when he gave into his temper. But there was one voice that Hound listened for each time he eavesdropped on the comm chatter, one mech who he felt he could trust. He just wanted a chance to speak to him alone, if he could find a way to make that happen.

Months had gone by, and Hound had not heard that one voice on the airwaves. Hound wondered if he had been taken off patrol after the incident with Hound. Maybe he had been injured and removed from duty. Maybe he had been reassigned. Maybe he was dead. They were at war, after all. Mechs died all the time.

No. Hound couldn’t allow himself to believe that Bluestreak was dead. 

Hound slumped further down the crystal pylon he was leaning against, and closed his optics once more. He tried to lose himself in the chatter. He tried to imagine a way out of his living nightmare. 

Just then, a new voice over the comm channel made Hound’s optics fly open. He jumped to his pedes and turned towards the base so that the voice came into his receiver with crystal clarity.

::Patrol Bravo Delta leaving base. Comms check, please?::

::Base to Bravo Delta, comms are clear. How are you reading?::

::Just fine. I’m glad I remember how to do this! We’re heading west; first status report will be in an hour... Mark.::

::Copy that, Blue. It’s good to hear your voice on the air again. Take care out there, ya hear?::

::We’ll do our best. Hope my first night back out is quiet. Bravo Delta out.::

Hound glanced at the moon, hanging just over the tips of the forest’s crystal pylons to the east. He had a good five or six hours before the moon set. If Bluestreak’s patrol was leaving base now and heading west, he could intercept them within an hour. 

Then he just had to figure out how to talk to Bluestreak... And what to say. 

Hound shook his helm and transformed, letting himself enjoy the thrill of his transformation cog working as it should. As he dropped to four wheels, he realized he knew exactly what he was going to tell Bluestreak.


	15. Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** G1  
>  **Warnings:** Touch starvation
> 
> This is a continuation from [Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160501/chapters/38595968).

Bluestreak closed the comm channel to Blaster and pinged Sunstreaker that he was ready to go. Then the two of them slowly rolled down the road to the west of the base.

It felt good to be out on patrol again. The assignment in Iacon had been an interesting diversion, and Bluestreak felt proud of what he had accomplished there with the new recruits. Prowl had been right to ~~suggest~~ tell Bluestreak to volunteer for the assignment, despite his misgivings. He’d never figured himself to be a good teacher, so seeing the improvement in the new group of snipers that he mentored brought him a deep satisfaction that he didn’t know he needed. 

Being in Iacon, though, meant that he couldn’t be in Tagan Heights to look for Hound. And when he returned, he discovered – to his dismay – that the dedicated patrols to look for the missing scout had been discontinued. They hadn’t totally given up on finding Hound, at least. All patrols were to report any signs that the Autobot scout was still in the area. But after three months of nothing, the prevailing opinion was that Hound had left the area.

Bluestreak’s engine growled. It hurt to think it, but he didn’t blame Hound for leaving. Not after what Cliffjumper had done. 

When he and Sunstreaker reached the turnoff for their patrol area, they transformed and continued forward in root mode. Neither of them had the clearance to manage the rough terrain of the trail. As they walked, Bluestreak kept his sensor wings active, scanning the area around them constantly. He knew better than to try to engage Sunstreaker in conversation, even over comms: the yellow frontliner would only put up with Bluestreak’s chatter for so long before snapping at him in irritation. So Bluestreak kept his processor occupied by doing constant sweeps for any signal or movement in the dense crystal forest around them, and looking at the ground beneath them for tracks or other signs.

They’d only been walking for about an hour when his sensors caught a flicker of movement off to their left. He turned slightly in that direction, focusing his sensors and optics in the shadows.

He saw nothing. He started to turn away when his optics caught another flash of motion. This time Bluestreak stopped, pinging Sunstreaker who was walking in front of him.

::I think there’s something off to the left.:: Bluestreak spread his sensor wings as wide as they would go, pulling in as much information as he could. However, he sensed nothing out of the ordinary. ::But every time I look that way, it disappears.::

Sunstreaker crouched down, peering into the darkness. ::How big? How far out?::

::Standard mech-sized, I think. Maybe it was about twenty meters away? It was so fast I wasn’t able to get a good read of it.:: He glanced down at Sunstreaker. ::It can’t be anything bad, right? This is my first patrol back. You’re only supposed to run into trouble on your final patrol, or at least that’s how all the holovids go.::

Sunstreaker sent back a grudging glyph of amusement, but still stared into the darkness. ::Let’s move in that direction. Keep scanning… Maybe we can flush it out so we can get a good look at it.:: He looked at Bluestreak as he stood up. ::It could just be a mechanimal.::

Bluestreak gnawed on his lip. If it was a mechanimal, it was a huge one… And maybe not one they wanted to tangle with. But it was their job to find out what was out here.

The two of them walked slowly into the dense forest. The moon shone down into the crystals around them, and their reflective surfaces created confusing echoes of their own signals, which Bluestreak hurriedly set filters in place to ignore. But even still, he kept catching ghosts of movement – first to the right, then their left. He wasn’t sure if his readings were real, or just shadows of their own motions.

Bluestreak was stepping over a fallen shard when he received a narrow band comm on his personal frequency. The familiar identity pings were followed by hesitant words. ::Bluestreak? I want to talk to you. Alone. Please.::

He stumbled over the shard and stopped short. Bluestreak quickly sent back a return ping of acknowledgement and acceptance. When Sunstreaker turned to look at him, Bluestreak stared at him with wide optics. “It’s Hound!” Bluestreak hissed out loud. 

Lifting an optical ridge, Sunstreaker looked around at the darkened forest. “Where is he?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know, but he said he wants to talk to me,” Bluestreak said. Then he dipped his sensor wings in apology. “He wants to talk to me alone.”

Sunstreaker straightened up and his optics widened. After a moment, he nodded. “I get it. I’ll wait here.” At Bluestreak’s confused frown, Sunstreaker said, “I know what it feels like to know that everyone’s afraid of you. Sometimes Sideswipe is the only one I want to be around because of that.” He lifted his rifle slightly. “Just keep your comm line active and let me know the instant you need help, all right?”

“Yeah… Sure.” Bluestreak smiled, tipping his sensor wings upwards. “I will. And thanks.”

Following the pings that Hound sent him, Bluestreak crept into the darkness. The path took him deep into the densest part of the forest, until he lost sight of Sunstreaker completely. His headlights only seemed to accentuate the shadows, so he left them off until he reached the coordinates Hound had sent him. “Hound?” he called softly, spinning around in a slow circle. “I’m here.”

A shadow on his right moved. It was close to the ground, appearing to hunch beside a pylon. Then Bluestreak heard a soft, familiar voice. “So am I.” 

“I’m going to turn on my lights so that I can see you, ok?” When Hound said nothing, Bluestreak flicked on his headlights.

Crouched beside a pylon was Hound. He squinted in the sudden light, but his optics never left Bluestreak’s face. A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “Hey, Blue,” he said.

“Hound!” Bluestreak took a cautious step towards his friend, his hands out at his sides and away from the rifle slung on his back. When Hound made no movement to get away, Bluestreak closed the distance and knelt in front of the scout. “You – you’re back to normal!” He grinned, taking in Hound’s familiar boxy shape. “This is great! When did this happen? You can come back with us, and –“

Hound held up a hand to quiet Bluestreak. “It’s just temporary,” he said. He pointed at the orb of Luna 1 hanging over the forest. “When that sets, I’ll change back.”

“Oh! Oh. So, the reverse of what it was?” When Hound nodded, Bluestreak blew a slow vent of air. Then he rushed to tell Hound what at been gnawing at him for months. “Hound, I told them what Cliffjumper did. He admitted it even, and he got a formal reprimand for it. I hope you don’t think I knew that he was going to do that?” Hound shook his helm, and Bluestreak flicked his sensor wings in relief. “I was so mad at him. I really did want to bring you back. And… you still can. Come back, I mean. They’re still looking for you, and –“

Hound shook his helm. “No. I… It would be the same as it was before. And they’d be right. They shouldn’t trust me. When I’m… In my other form, I’m angry all the time. Mad at the mech who did this to me. Mad at the other Autobots for making it worse. Mad at the world. I don’t want to risk hurting anyone else,” he said, his voice trailing off.

Bluestreak felt a tightness around his spark chamber, and he reached out to put his hand on Hound’s shoulder armor. “All right,” he said. “What **can** I do for you?”

As soon as Bluestreak’s hand touched Hound’s shoulder, the scout’s field flared out. First it was filled with surprise, but then shifted to longing, and then to a deep sense of grief. Bluestreak frowned at the intensity of the emotion, and listened to Hound spit static for several seconds. “I…” Hound’s vents hitched as he tried to reset his vocalizer. “I just want someone to talk to. I miss everyone. I know I can’t go back, not like this, but…” He reached up and put his own hand on top of Bluestreak’s. “Will you come see me? Sometimes?”

“Of course!” Bluestreak tipped his sensor wings upwards. “And I can bring you things, if you want: fuel, or cushions, or things to read?” He felt Hound’s field become agitated, and Hound’s optics squeezed shut. Impulsively, Bluestreak leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the scout. “Or we can just hang out and talk. Whatever you want.”

Hound stiffened in his arms before seeming to melt, slumping into Bluestreak’s chest. He radiated a strut-deep relief, and every brush of Bluestreak’s hand down his back seemed to relax him more. Slowly, he lifted his arms and returned Bluestreak’s embrace. “I’d like that,” Hound murmured. “I wish things were different, but… Just being able to talk to someone would be nice.”

Bluestreak held Hound close, his processor churning as he tried to think of a way to help his friend. “We’ll figure this out, Hound,” he said. “One way or another. We’ll figure out a way to fix you, or at least fixed enough so you can come back home.” 

Hound said nothing, and only buried his face into Bluestreak’s shoulder as he clung to the Praxian. They stayed there as Luna 1 sank behind the crystal pylons around them, casting them into the shadows once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this isn't a really satisfactory ending to the werewolf!Hound saga, but I've run out of time on this and need to work on something else for a while. I know where I want to take the story, so I'm planning on revisiting/rewriting parts of this (there are lots of scenes missing that were just summarized in these fics) and showing what happens next. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoyed these random prompts. :) I did manage to get myself a bingo after giving myself two extra prompts (the last two chapters.) Huzzah!


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